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HISTORY 



OF 



ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 



HISTORY 



OF 



ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 



DK. W. WINDELBAND 

PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY" OF STRASSBURG 



^utfjort^eti Cranalattfln 



HERBERT ERNEST CUSHMAN, Ph.D. 

INSTRUCTOR IN PHILOSOPHY IN TUFTS COLLEGE 



FROM THE SECOND GERMAN EDITION 



NEW YORK 
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

1899 




-*v 



•ECONO COPY, 



4382^ 

Copyright, 1399, 
By Charles Scribner's Sons. 



All rights reserved. 
TWO COPIES RECEIVED. 

00 f 9-1899 






^tottatts Press: 
John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U. S. A. 






d 



TO 

WILLIAM E. SHIPMAN, LL.D. 

Professor of lEngltgfj in Eufts College, 

MY FRIEND AND COUNSELLOR. 



TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE 

Professor Windelband's Creschichte der Alten Philo- 
sophic is already well known to German philosophical 
readers as one of the famous Miiller series of hand-books, 
and yet to that wider circle of English readers it is still a 
foreign book. In many quarters technical scholars of 
Greek philosophy have already commended its important v 
innovations, and to these its erudition and scholarship are 
patent. In its translation, however, under the title of " The 
History of Ancient Philosophy," it will reach the general 
reader and serve as an introduction to the beginner in phi- 
losophy. I have personally never been able to see why the 
approaches to the study of philosophy have been made as 
difficult and uninviting as possible. In other hard sub- 
jects all sorts of helps and devices are used to allure the 
beginner within. Into philosophy the beginner has always 
had to force his way with no indulgent hand to help. In 
the past the history of thought has too often been entirely 
separated from the history of affairs, as if the subjec-J 
tive historical processes could have been possible with- 
out the objective concrete events. Professor Windelband 
has gone far to lead the general reader to the history 
of thought through the history of the affairs of the Greek 
nation. This is, to my mind, the difficult but absolutely 
necessary task of the historian of thought, if he wishes 
to reach any but technical philosophers. This work occu- 



Vlll PREFACE 

pies a unique position in this respect, and may mark the 
beginning of an epoch in the rewriting of the history of 
philosophy. 

I am indebted to many friends for help in my transla- 
tion of this work. The reader will allow me to mention in 
particular Professor George H. Palmer, of Harvard, my 
friend and former teacher, for introducing me to the work ; 
and my colleagues, Professor Charles St. Clair Wade for 
much exceedingly valuable assistance, and especially Pro- 
fessors Charles E. Fay and Leo R. Lewis, whose generous 
and untiring aid in the discussion of the whole I shall 
ever remember. Whatever merits the translation may 
have, are due in no small measure to their help; for 
whatever defects may appear, I can hold only myself 
responsible. 

So complete are the bibliographies here and elsewhere 
that I have found it necessary to append only a list of such 
works as are helpful to the English reader of Ancient 
Philosophy. 

HERBERT ERNEST CUSHMAN. 

Tufts College, June, 1899. 



PREFACE 

TO THE SECOND GERMAN EDITION 

Having undertaken to prepare a re'sume* of the history of 
ancient philosophy for the Handbuch der Klassischen Alter- 
tumswissenschaft, it seemed expedient to offer to my trained 
readers, not an extract from the history of the literature of 
the Greeks and Romans, which can be found elsewhere ; 
but rather a short and clear presentation, such as would 
awaken interest and give an insight into the subject matter 
and the development of ancient philosophy. The necessity 
of a new edition gives evidence that this presentation has 
won itself friends far beyond the circle of those most 
nearly interested. This, moreover, would not have hap- 
pened had I not abandoned the idea of presenting a col- 
lation from the data usually furnished, and had I not given 
to the subject the form which my long personal experience 
as an academic teacher had proved to be most available. 
As a result I found myself in the somewhat painful posi- 
tion of being compelled to present didactically many very 
considerable deviations from the previous conception and 
treatment, without being able in the limitations of this 
re'sume* to advance for experts my reasons save in short 
references. I should have been very glad if I could have 
found time to justify my innovations by accompanying de- 
tailed discussions. But, unfortunately, the execution of 
my whole purpose has been postponed up to this time 
through more important and imperative tasks. The new 



X PREFACE 

edition, therefore, finds me again in the same position of 
being compelled to trust more in the force of the general 
relations of the subject matter and in the emphasis briefly 
laid upon important moments, than in a leisurely extended 
polemical presentation, which would otherwise have been 
usual in this particular field. 

For the chief matters in which I have gone my own ways 
— the separation of Pythagoras from the Pythagoreans 
and the discussion of the latter under " Efforts toward 
Reconciliation between Heracleitanism and the Theory of 
Parmenides," the separation of the two phases of Atomism 
by the Protagorean Sophistic, the juxtaposition of Democ- 
ritus and Plato, the conception of the Hellenic-Roman phil- 
osophy as a progressive application — first ethical and then 
religious — of science, to which I have also organically con- 
nected Patristics, — all this the reader finds unchanged in 
its essentials. My treatment of these questions has found 
recognition in many quarters, but in many also an expected 
opposition; and the reader may be assured that I have 
always been grateful for this latter, and have given it care- 
ful consideration. This weighing of objections was the 
more needful since I had occasion in the mean time to deal 
with the same questions in a larger connection and from 
a different point of view. The trained eye will not fail to 
recognize in this second edition the influence of the objec- 
tions of experts, even where these have not convinced me, 
in the numerous small changes in the presentation, and in 
the choice of bibliography and citations. Here, again, the 
revising hand needed to follow many a kindly suggestion in 
the discussions of this book, and accept many a gratifying 
explanation in the works that have appeared during the 
past five years. 

The only change in the external form of the book is in 
the very desirable addition of an index to the philosophers 
discussed. 



PREFACE XI 

Then may my brief treatise continue to fulfil its task : 
to solicit friends appreciative of a noble cause, to preserve 
alive the consciousness of the imperishable worth which 
the creations of Greek thought possess for all human 
culture. 

WILHELM WINDELBAND. 

Strasburg, April, 1893. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 



Paob 

Translator's Preface vii 

Author's Preface (to second German edition) ... ix 



INTRODUCTION 

1. Significance of ancient philosophy to European civilization 1 

2. Division of ancient philosophy 3 

3. Historical methods . . . 5 

4-6. Sources and developments of ancient philosophy ... 8 



A. — GREEK PHILOSOPHY 

Introduction: The preliminary conditions of philosophy in 
the Greek intellectual life of the seventh and sixth cen- 
turies b. c * 16-292 

7. Geographical survey 16 

8. Social and political relations 17 

9. The period of ethical reflection : the Seven Wise Men . . 18 

10. Practical and special learning 20 

11. Religious ideas 26 

12. The reformation by Pythagoras 28 

13. The first problems of science 33 

1. The Milesian Nature Philosophy. Pages 36-45. 

14. Thales • . 36 

15. Anaximander 39 

16. Anaximenes 43 



XIV TABLE OF CONTENTS 

Page 

2. The Metaphysical Conflict. — Heracleitus and 
the Eleatics. Pages 46-71. 

17. Xenophanes 46 

18. Heracleitus 52 

19. Parmenides 59 

20. Zeno and Melissus 65 

3. Efforts toward Reconciliation. Pages 71-100. 



21. Empedocles 73 

22. Anaxagoras 80 

23. The beginnings of Atomism : Leucippus 87 

24. The Pythagoreans 93 

4. The Greek Enlightenment The Sophists 

and Socrates. Pages 100-151. 

25. Eclecticism and special research 100 

26. The Sophists 108 

27. Socrates 123 

28. The Megarian and Elean-Eretrian Schools 135 

29. The Cynic School 140 

30. The Cyrenaic School 145 

5. Materialism and Idealism. — Democritus and 
Plato. Pages 151-223. 

31. The life and writings of Democritus 155 

32. The theoretic philosophy of Democritus ...... 159 

33. The practical philosophy of Democritus 170 

34. The life and writings of Plato 174 

35. The theory of Ideas of Plato 189 

36. The ethics of Plato 204 

■37. The nature philosophy of Plato 216 

6. Aristotle. Pages 224-292. 

38. The Older Academy . . 224 

39. The life and writings of Aristotle 230 

40. The logic of Aristotle 247 

41. The metaphysics of Aristotle . . . . . . . . . . 257 

42. The physics of Aristotle 268 

43. The ethics and poetics of Aristotle 282 



TABLE OF CONTENTS xv 



B. — HELLENIC-ROMAN PHILOSOPHY 

Page 

44. Introduction 293 

1. The Controversies of the Schools. Pages 298-329 

45. The Peripatetics 298 

46. The Stoics 303 

47. The Epicureans^ 319 

2. Skepticism and Syncretism. Pages 329-349. 

48. The Skeptics 329 

49. Eclecticism 337 

50. Mystic Platonism 341 

3. Patristics. Pages 349-365. 

51. The Apologists 352 

52. The Gnostics and their opponents 355 

53. The Alexandrian School of Catechists. Origen . . . . 361 

4. Neo-Platonism. Pages 365-383. 

54. The Alexandrian School : Plotinus 366 

55. The Syrian School : Jamblichus 375 

56. The Athenian School : Proclus . 377 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 385 

INDEX 389 



HISTORY 



OF 



ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 



INTRODUCTION 

1. Scientific interest in ancient, especially in Greek, 
philosophy, is not confined to the value that it possesses as 
a peculiar subject for historical research and for the study 
of the growth of civilization. But it is also equally con- 
cerned in the permanent significance that the content of 
ancient thought possesses by reason of its place in the 
development of the intellectual life of Europe. 

The emphasis falls primarily upon the lifting of mere 
knowing to the plane of systematic knowledge, or science. 
Not content with his storing of practical facts, and with 
his fantastic speculations born of his religious needs, the 
Greek sought knowledge for its own sake. Knowledge, 
like art, was developed as an independent function from 
its involvement in the other activities of civilization. So, 
first and foremost, the history of ancient philosophy is an 
insight into the origin of European science in general. 

It is, however, at the same time the history of the birth 
of the separate sciences. For the process of differentia- 
tion, which begins with distinguishing thought from con- 
duct and mythology, was continued within the domain of 
science itself. With the accumulation and organic ar- 
rangement of its facts, the early, simple, and unitary science 
to which the Greeks gave the name faXoo-ocfria, divided into 

1 



w' 



2 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

the special sciences, the single faXoaocfrLaL, and these then 
continued to develop on more or less independent lines. 

Concerning the history and meaning of the name of " phi- 
losophy," see especially R. Haym, in Ersch and Gruber's Ency- 
Mopadie, III. division, vol. 24 ; Ueberweg, Grundriss, I. § 1 ; 
Windelband, Praeludien, p. 1 ff. The word became a technical 
term in the Socratic school. It meant there exactly what sci- 
ence means in German. In later time, after the division into 
the special sciences, the word philosophy had the sense of 
ethico-religious practical wisdom. See § 2. 

The beginnings of scientific life that are thus found in 
ancient philosophy are most influential upon the entire 
development that follows. With proportionately few data, 
Greek philosophy produced, with a kind of grand simplicity, 
conceptual forms for the intellectual elaboration of its facts, 
and with a remorseless logic it developed every essential 
point of view for the study of the universe. Therein con- 
sists the peculiar character of ancient thought and the high 
didactic significance of its history. Our present language 
and our conception of the world are thoroughly permeated 
by the results of ancient science. The naive ruggedness 
with which ancient philosophers followed out single motives 
of reflection to their most one-sided logical conclusions, 
brings into clearest relief that practical and psychological 
necessity which governs not only the evolution of the 
problems of philosophy, but also the repeated historical 
tendencies toward the solution of these problems. We 
may likewise ascribe a typical significance to the universal 
stages of development of ancient philosophy, in view of the 
fact that philosophy at first turned with undaunted courage 
to the study of the outer world ; thwarted there, it turned 
back to the inner world, and from this point of view, with 
renewed strength, it attempted to conceive the World-All. 
Even the manner in which ancient thought placed its 
entire apparatus of conceptual knowledge at the service of 



INTRODUCTION 3 

social and religious needs has a peculiar and more than 
historical value. 

The real significance of ancient philosophy will be much ex- 
aggerated if one tries to draw close analogies between the dif- 
ferent phases of modern philosophy and its exponents, and 
those of the ancients. Read K. v. Reichlin-Meldegg, D. Paral- 
lelismus d. alten u. neuen Philosophies Leipzig and Heidelberg, 
1865. A detailed parallelism is impossible, because all the 
forms of the modern history of civilization have so much more 
nearly complete presuppositions, and are more complicated than 
those of the ancient world. The typical character of the latter 
is valid in so far as they have " writ large" and often nearly 
grotesquely the simple and elemental forms of mental life, 
which among moderns are far more complicated in their 
combinations. 

2. The total of that which is usually designated as 
ancient philosophy falls into two large divisions, which 
must be distinguished as much in respect to the civilizations 
that form their background as in respect to the intel- 
lectual principles that move them. These divisions are, 
(1) Greek philosophy, and (2) Hellenic-Roman philosophy. 
We may assume the year of the death of Aristotle, 322 b. c, 
as the historical line of demarcation between the two. 

Greek philosophy grew out of an exclusive national 
culture, and is the legitimate offspring of the Greek spirit. 
The Hellenic-Roman philosophy came, on the other hand, 
out of much more manifold and contradictory intellectual 
movements. After the days of Alexander the Great a 
culture that was so cosmopolitan that it broke down all 
national barriers, increased in ever-widening circles among 
the nations upon the Mediterranean Sea. The fulfilment of 
these intellectual movements was objectively expressed in 
the Roman Empire, subjectively in Christianity ; and, be it 
remarked, the Hellenic-Roman philosophy forms one of the 
mightiest factors in this very process of amalgamation. 

Moreover, there is a not less important difference in the 
scientific interest of the two periods. Greek philosophy 



4 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

began with an independent desire for knowledge. It was 
ever concerned in the quest for knowledge that was free 
from all subordinate purposes. It perfected itself in Aris- 
totle, partly in his logic, which was a universal theory of 
knowledge, and partly in the scheme of a developed system 
of sciences. The energy of this purely theoretic interest 
was gradually extinguished in the following time, and was' 
only partly maintained in unpretentious work upon the 
objective special sciences. The practical question how the 
Wise Man should live entered into " philosophy," however, 
and knowledge was no longer sought on account of itself 
but as a means of right living. In this way the Hellenic- 
Roman philosophy fell into dependence upon the general 
but temporary changes in society, — a thing that never 
happened in purely Greek philosophy. Then later its 
original ethical tendency changed entirely into the effort to 
find by means of science a satisfaction for religious aspira- 
tion. In Greece, philosophy, therefore, was science that 
had ripened into independence ; in Hellenism and the 
Roman Empire, philosophy entered with a full possession 
of its consciousness into the service of the social and 
religious mission of man. 

It is obvious, from the elasticity of all historical divisions, 
that this antithesis is not absolute, but only relative. The post- 
Aristotelian philosophy is not entirely lacking in endeavors 
for the essentially theoretical, nor indeed among the purely 
Greek thinkers are there wanting those who set for philosophy 
ultimately practical ends, — the Socratics for example. How- 
ever, comparison of the different definitions which in the course 
of antiquity have been given for the problem of philosophy, 
justifies, on the whole, the division we have chosen, which takes 
the purpose of philosophy in its entirety as the principiiim 
divisionis. 

These divisions approach most nearly among later writers 
those of Ch. A. Brandis in his shorter work, Gesch. d. Entwick. 
d. griechisclien Phil. u. Hirer Nachwirkungen im romischen 
Reiclie (2 vols., Berlin, 1862 and 1864), although he distin- 
guishes formally three periods here, as in his larger work. 



INTRODUCTION 5 

These periods are : (1) pre-Socratic philosophy ; (2) the devel- 
opment from Socrates to Aristotle; (3) post- Aristotelian phi- 
losophy. Yet he unites the first two divisions as " the first 
half," and distinctly recognizes their inner relationship in con- 
trast to the third division, which forms "the second half." 
Zeller and Schwegler also employ these three periods as the 
basis of their work upon the Greeks, while Ritter puts the 
Stoics andf Epicureans also in the second period. Hegel, on 
the other hand, treats the entire Greek philosophy until Aris- 
totle as the first period, to which he adds the Graeco-Roman 
philosophy as the second and the neo-Platonic philosophy as 
the third. Ueberweg accepts the divisions of Ritter, with this 
variation, — he transfers the Sophists from the first period to 
the second. 

We purposely desist from dividing here the two chief periods 
of philosophy into subordinate periods. The demand for com- 
prehensiveness, which alone would justify further divisions, is 
satisfied with the simple general divisions, while a comprehen- 
sive view of the steps in development is provided for in another 
manner by the treatment of individual doctrines. If a completer 
subdivision should be insisted upon, the following might be 
adopted : — 

(a) Greek philosophy into three periods : — 

(1) The cosmological, which includes the entire pre-Socratic 
speculation, and reaches down to about 450 b. c. (§§ 1-3) ; 

(2) The anthropological, to which belong the men of the 
Greek Enlightenment, i. e., the Sophists, Socrates, and the so- 
called Socratic schools (§ 4) ; 

(3) The systematic, which by its uniting the two preceding 
periods is the flowering period of Greek science. 

(b) Hellenic-Roman philosophy into two sections : — 

(1) The school-controversies of the post- Aristotelian time, 
with the accompanying essential ethical tendency, critical skep- 
ticism, and retrospective erudition (§§ 1 and 2). 

(2) Eclectic Platonism, with its bifurcation into the rival sys- 
tems of Christian and neo-Platonic religions (§§3 and 4). 

3. The scientific treatment of the history of philosophy 
or of a part of that history, as in this treatise, has a 
double task. On the one hand it must determine the 
actual number of those concepts which are claimed to be 
" philosophic," and must conceive them in their genesis, 
particularly in their relation to each other. On the other 



6 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

hand, it must determine the value of each individual 
philosophic doctrine in the development of the scientific 
consciousness. 

In the first regard the history of philosophy is purely an 
historical science. As such, it must without any predilec- 
tion proceed, by a careful examination of the tradition, to 
establish with philological exactness the content of the 
philosophic doctrines. It must explain their origin with 
all the precautionary measures of the historical method. 
It furthermore must make clear their genetic relations, on 
the one hand, to the personal life of the philosophers, and, 
on the other, to civilization as a whole. In this way it 
will be plain how philosophy has attained to an actual 
process of development. 

From this historical point of view, however, there arises 
for the history of philosophy the critical task of determin- 
ing the results which the various systems of philosophy 
have yielded for the construction of the human concep- 
tion of the world. The point of view for this critical study 
need not be the peculiar philosophical attitude of history. 
Nevertheless it must, on the one hand, be that of inner 
criticism, which tests the teaching of a philosophical sys- 
tem by logical compatibility and consistency; it. must, on 
the other hand, be that of historical generalization, which 
estimates philosophical teaching according to its intellec- 
tual fruitfulness and its practical historical efficacy . 

The history of ancient philosophy as a science has to 
meet very great and sometimes insuperable difficulties in 
the fragmentary character of the literary sources. On the 
other hand, in its critical problem, it is fortunate in being 
able, after a development of nearly two thousand years, to 
judge the value of individual teaching with no personal 
bias. 

The different points of view taken in investigating the his- 
tory of philosophy are as follows : — 



INTRODUCTION 7 

(1) The naive point of view of description. According to 
ibis the teachings of the different philosophers are supposed to 
be reported with historical authenticity. So soon, however, as 
any report is claimed to be of scientific value, the tradition 
must be criticised; and this, as all other historical criticism, 
can be accomplished only by investigating the sources. 

(2) The genetic point of view of explanation, which has three 
possible forms, — 

(a) The psychological explanation. This represents the per- 
sonality and individual relations of the respective philosophers 
as the actual causes or occasions of their opinions. 

(6) The pragmatic method. This is an attempt to under- 
stand the teaching of each philosopher by explaining the contra- 
dictions and unsolved problems of his immediate predecessors. 

(c) The kultur-historisch view. This sees in the philosophical 
systems the progressive consciousness of the entire ideal de- 
velopment of the human mind. 

(3) The speculative attitude of criticism. Starting from a 
systematic conviction, this seeks to characterize the different 
phases of philosophical development by the contributions thereto 
which they have severally furnished. (Compare Hegel, in Vor- 
lesungen uber d. GescJi. d. Phil., Complete Works, Vol. XIII. 
19 ff. ; Ueberweg, Grundriss, I. § 3 ; Complete Works, Gescli. d. 
Phil., Freiburg i.B., 1892, §§ 1 and2.) Until within the previous 
century enumeration of the placlta philosophorum, with some 
little application of the pragmatic method, essentially predomi- 
nated in the history of philosophy. Hegel, with all the exagger- 
ation of this speculative point of view, was the first to raise 
philosophy from a mere collection of curiosities to a science. 
His constructive and fundamental idea — that in the historical 
order of philosophical theories the categories of true philoso- 
phy repeat themselves as progressive achievements of human- 
ity — involved an emphasis upon the kultur-historisch and the 
pragmatic explanations, and this required only the individual- 
istic psychological supplementation. On account of Hegel's 
speculative conception, on the other hand, historical criticism 
fell with the disappearance of faith in the absolute philosophy. 
By this historical criticism the mere establishment of the facts 
and their genetic explanation are changed into a complete philo- 
sophical science. Hegel created the science of the history of 
philosophy according to its ideal purposes, but not until after his 
day was safe ground presented for achieving such a science by 
the philological method of getting the data without presupposi- 
tions. Upon no territory has this method since recorded such 
far-reaching success as upon the field of ancient philosophy. 



8 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

4. The scientific helps to the study of ancient philos- 
ophy fall into three classes : — 

(a~) The Original Sources. Only a very few of the 
writings of ancient philosophers have been preserved. 
As to complete single works in the purely Greek philos- 
ophy, they are to be found only in Plato and Aristotle. 
The original sources, however, are richer in the Hellenic- 
Roman period. The writings of the ancient Greek think- 
ers are preserved in only a fragmentary way through 
incidental citations of later literature. 

The most comprehensive collection not especially mentioned 
hereafter, is that of F. W. A. Mullach, Fragmenta philosopho- ^/ 
rum Grcecorum (3 vols., Paris, 1860-81). Yet it satisfies to- 
day neither the demands for completeness nor for accuracy. 

Nevertheless the works that have come down to us are 
by no means to be accepted in toto and on trust. Not 
alone unintentionally, but also from its desire to give to 
its own teaching, so far as possible, the nimbus of ancient 
wisdom, later antiquity substituted in many instances its 
own compositions for the writings of the ancients, or in- 
terpolated their texts. The sources of Greek philosophy 
in particular are not only in a very fragmentary but also 
in a very uncertain state, and we are still limited to a 
conjecture of a greater or less degree of probability in 
regard to many very weighty questions. The philological- 
historical criticism, which seems indispensable under these 
circumstances, requires a safe criterion for our guidance, and 
this criterion we possess in the works of Plato and Aristotle. 

Opposed to the easy credulity with which in the previous 
century (according to Buhle) tradition was receive I, Schleier- 
macher had the especial merit of having begun and incited a 
fruitful criticism. Brandis, Trendelenburg, Zeller, and Diels 
were likewise the leaders in this direction. 

5. (&) The Corroborative Testimony of Antiquity. Early 
(according to Xenophon) in ancient literature we find tes- 



INTRODUCTION 9 

timony on the life and death of notable philosophers. Of 
importance for us, moreover, are the passages in which 
Plato and Aristotle — especially in the beginning of his 
Metaphysics — linked their own teaching to the early phi- 
losophy. At the time of Aristotle there arose a widely 
spread, partly historical and partly critical literature, con- 
cerning what was then ancient philosophy. Unfortunately, 
this has been lost, excepting a few fragments. Especially 
deplorable is the loss of the writings of this character of 
Aristotle and his immediate disciples, — Theophrastus in 
particular. Similar works, likewise no longer extant, issued 
from the Academy, in which, moreover, commentating also 
had its beginning at an early time. So, also, the historical 
and critical works of the Stoics have gone forever. 

This historiography of philosophy, the so-called dox- 
ography, with its commentating and collating, developed 
enormously in the Alexandrian literature, and had its three 
philosophical centres in Pergamus, Rhodes, and Alexandria. 
These voluminous and numerous works in their original 
form are in the main lost. Yet with all recognition of 
the erudition that doubtless permeated them, it must still 
be maintained that they have exercised a bewildering 
influence in various ways upon succeeding writers, who 
took excerpts directly out of them. Besides this almost 
unavoidable danger of reading later conceptions and theo- 
ries into the old teaching, there appear three chief sources 
of error, — 

(1) In the inclination to fix the succession of ancient philoso- 
phers after the manner of the later successions of scholarchs. 

(2) In the fantastic tendency to dignify ancient Greece with 
the miraculous and the extraordinary. 

(3) Finally, in the effort that sprang out of an undefined feel- 
ing of the dependence of Grecian upon Oriental culture. En- 
couraged by a new acquaintance with the East, some scholars 
have tried to knit every significant fact as closely as possible 
with Oriental influence. 



10 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

Statements at only third or fourth hand are left over to 
us from the Roman period. The historical notes in the 
fragments of Varro, in the writings of Cicero (Rud. Heizel, 
Untersuch. zu C. philos. Schriften, 3 parts, Leipzig, 1877- 
1883), as well as of Seneca, Lucretius, and Plutarch, are 
valuable, but must be used with care. The philosophical- 
historical writings of Plutarch are lost. The compila- 
tion preserved under his name, De physicis philosophorum 
decretis (in Dubner's edition of the Morals, Paris, 1841), 
is, according to Diels, an abstract of the Placita of Aetius, 
dating back to Theophrastus, and was made perhaps in 
the middle of the second century. The spurious book 
irepl <f>ikoo-6($)ov laTopias, which is falsely ascribed to 
Galen, is in the main identical with it in the nineteenth vol- 
ume of Kuhrfschen Gesamtausgabe). Many later excerpts 
of Favonius are included among the uncritically collected 
reports ; so, also, those of Apuleius and of Gellius (Nodes 
atticce, ed. Hertz, Leipzig, 1884-85 ; see also Mercklin, 
Die Zitiermethode u. Quellenbenutzung des A. Gr., Leipzig, 
1860). Lucian's writings must also be mentioned in this 
connection. Those numberless historical accounts in the 
writings of Galen (especially De placitis Hippocratis et 
Platonis, separately published by Iwan Miiller, Leipzig, 
1874) and of Sextus Empiricus {Op. ed. Bekker, Berlin, 
1842 : 7rvppoov6coc virorvirwdei^ and irpb<; fjLaOrjfjLarcKov^) are 
philosophically more trustworthy. Out of the same period 
grew the work of Flavius Philostratus, Vitce sophistarum 
(ed. Westermann, Paris, 1849), and of Athenaeus, Deipno- 
sophistce (ed. Meineke, Leipzig, 1857-69). Finally, there 
is the book which was regarded for a long time almost as 
the principal source for a history of ancient philosophy; 
viz., that of Diogenes Laertius, irepl /3lcov, Soyfjidrcov real 
airo(f>06y/jidrcov raiv ev ^>oXoao(j)ia evSoKtfjLTjadvrcov fiifiXia 
hexa (ed. Cobet, Paris, 1850). 

Another kind of secondary sources is furnished by the 



INTRODUCTION 11 

writings of the church fathers, who have polemical, apolo- 
getic, and dogmatic aims in reproducing the Greek phi- 
losophy. This is especially true of Justin Martyr, Clement 
of Alexandria, Origen {Kara KeAcroi/), Hippolytus (Refuta- 
tio omnium hoeresium, ed. Duncker, Gott., 1859, the first book 
of this being formerly supposed to be a work of Origen 
under the title </u\oero0ov/xez;a),Eusebius (Prcep. evang.,e&. 
Dindorf, Leipzig, 1868), and in certain respects also Tertul- 
lian and Augustine. The importance of the church fathers 
as sources for the study of ancient philosophy has attained 
recently to a completer and more fruitful recognition, 
especially since the impulse given by Diels to their study. 

Finally, the activity in commentating and historical re- 
search was carried on in a lively fashion in the neo- 
Platonic school. The chief work indeed, that of Porphyry, 
is not preserved ($l\6<to<$>o$ lo-ropia). On the other hand, 
the writings of the neo-Platonists in general offer numerous 
historical data ; and, as already the earlier commentaries 
of Alexander of Aphrodisias (zu Arist. Met., ed. Hay duck, 
Berlin, 1891, and zu Arist. Top., M. Wallier, Berlin, 1891 ; 
smaller works by Ivo Bruns, Berlin, 1893), — so the com- 
mentaries of Themistius, and especially Simplicius, contain 
many carefully and intelligently compiled excerpts from 
the direct and indirect sources of earlier times. Among 
the latest writers of ancient literature the collections of 
Stobaeus and Photius, and those also of Hesychius, appear 
useful for the history of philosophy. 

Compare Diels, Doxographi Grceci (Berlin, 1879). An ex- 
cellent and, for a beginning, an extraordinarily instructive 
collection of the most important passages from the primary and 
secondary sources is that of Bitter and Preller in their Historia 
philosophies Grceco-romance ex fontium locis contexta (7 ed. is 
brought out by Schulthess and Wellmann, Gotha, 1888). 

6. (<?) The Modern Expositions. Scholarly treatment 
of ancient philosophy was in modern literature con- 



12 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

fined at first to a brief criticism of the latest works of 
antiquity. Thus, the occasional historical collections con- 
cerned with ancient philosophy which we find in the 
Humanistic literature, in the main led back to neo-Platonic 
sources. The very first work, the History of Philosophy, 
by Thomas Stanley (London, 1665), scarcely more than 
reproduced the reports of Diogenes Laertius. Bayle in his 
Dictionnaire historique et critique (1 ed., Rotterdam, 1697), 
gave a powerful impulse to critical treatment. 1 

Later appeared the writings of Brucker, thoroughgoing, 
industriously compiled, but in point of fact not equal to 
the task : Kurze Fragen aus der philosophischen Historie 
(Ulm, 1731 f.), Historia critica philosophies (Leipzig, 
1742 f.), Institutiones historice philosophies (Leipzig, 1747 ; 
a compendium for a school manual). 

With the formation of the great schools of philosophy, 
particularly in Germany, the history of philosophy began 
to be treated with reference to its single directions and 
systems. In the front D. Tiedemann came with his em- 
pirical-sceptical G-eist der Philosophie (Marburg, 1791 ff.). 
Then followed, from the Kantian point of view, J. G. Buhle 
with Lehrbueh der G-eschichte der Philosophie (Gott., 1796 
ff.) ; Tennemann, Geschiehte der Philosophie, 1798 ff.) ; 
then the Grundriss der Geschiehte der Philosophie (5th 
ed.), Amad. Wendt, Leipzig, 1829, a much used epitome, 
commending itself by its careful literary data ; and J. F. 
Fries, Geschiehte der Philosophie (1 vol., Halle, 1837). 
From the Schellingen point of view, there are Fr. Ast's 
Grundriss einer Geschiehte der Philosophie (Landshut, 
1807) ; E. Reinhold, Geschiehte der Philosophie nach den 
Hauptpunkten ihrer Entwichelung (Jena, 1858). From 
the point of view of Schleiermacher, are his own notes 
for his lectures on the history of philosophy in a collection 

1 Upon which a philosophical article of value in part even to-day has 
been published in German by H. Jacob (1797-98, Halle). 



INTRODUCTION 13 

of three parts, four volumes (Berlin, 1839) : H. Ritter, 
Die G-eschichte der Philosophie (Hamburg, 1829 ff.) ; F. 
Ch. Potter, Die Geschichte der Philosophie in Umriss 
(Elberfeld, 1873) - 1 From the Hegelian point of view, 
are Hegel's lectures upon the history of philosophy in his 
complete works, XIII. £f. ; J. E. Erdmann, Grundriss 
der Geschichte der Philosophie (3 ed., Berlin, 1878). 
From the Herbartian point of view, is Ch. A. Thilo, Kurze 
pragmatische Geschichte der Philosophie (Cothen, 2 ed., 
1880). With especial reference to the factual development 
of problems and concepts, ancient philosophy has also been 
treated by W. Windelband, Geschichte der Philosophie 
(Freiburg i. Br., 1892). Of the other numerous complete 
presentations of the history of philosophy, that of J. Berg- 
mann (Berlin, 1892) may be finally mentioned. Of the 
presentations in other languages than German which also 
give valuable contribution to the study of ancient philosophy, 
may be here mentioned : V. Cousin, Histoire generate de la 
philosophie (12 ed., Paris, 1884) ; A. Weber, Histoire de 
philosophie europeenne (Paris, 5 ed., 1892) ; A. Fouille'e, 
Histoire de la Philosophie (Paris, 3 ed., 1882) ; R. Blakey, 
History of the Philosophy of Mind (London, 1848) ; G. H. 
Lewes, A Biographical History of Philosophy (London, 
4 ed., 1871, German ed., Berlin, 1871). 

The completest literary data for the historiography of philos- 
ophy, and particularly ancient philosophy, are found in Ueber- 
weg, Grundriss d. Philos., sl work which presents also in its 
remarkable continuation by M. Heinze (7 ed., Berlin, 1886) an 
indispensable completeness in its annotations. The texts fur- 
nished by Ueberweg himself were at first only superficially 
systematized by him, and were given an unequal, confused, and, 
for beginners, untransparent character by his later additions, 
interpolations, and annotations. 

1 An inspiring statement of the development of ancient philosophy is 
also that of Brandis's Geschichte der Philos. seit Kant, 1 Part (Breslau, 
1842). 



14 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

The profounder philological studies at the beginning of 
the nineteenth century were advantageous to the history of 
ancient philosophy, since a critical sifting of tradition and 
a philological and methodical basis for historical-philoso- 
phical research was facilitated (compare Zeller, Jahrbiicher 
der Gegenwart Jahrg., 1843). The greatest credit for such 
a stimulus is due to Schleiermacher, whose translation of 
Plato was a powerful example, and whose special works 
upon Heracleitus, Diogenes of Apollonia, Anaximander, 
and others have been placed in Part III. book 2, of his col- 
lected works. Among the numerous special researches are 
to be mentioned A. B. Krische's Forschungen auf dem 
Gebiete der alten Philosophic (Gott., 1840) ; also A. Trende- 
lenburg, Historisehe Beitrage zur Philosophie (Berlin, 
1846 f.), the author of which deserves credit for his stimula- 
tion of Aristotelian studies ; H. Siebeck, Untersuchungen zur 
Philosophie der G-riechen (2 ed., Freiburg i. Br., 1888) ; 
G. Teichmiiller, Studien zur Geschichte der Begriffe (Berlin, 
1874 ff .) ; 0. Apelt, Beitrage zur Geschichte der griechischen 
Philosophie (Leipzig, 1891) ; E. Norden (the same title), 
Leipzig, 1892. 

As the first product of these criti co-philological studies, 
we may consider the praiseworthy work of Ch. A. Brandis, 
Handbuch der Geschichte der grieehisch-romischen Philoso- 
phie (Berlin, 1835-60), by the side of which the author 
placed a shorter and especially finely conceived exposition, 
Geschichte der Fntwichelungen der griechischen Philosophie 
und ihrer Nachwirhungen im romischen Reiche (Berlin, 1862 
u. 1864). With less exhaustiveness, but with a peculiar 
superiority in the development of the problems, Ludw. 
Striimpell (2d part, Leipzig, 1854, 1861), K. Prantl 
(Stuttgart, 2 ed., 1863), and A. Schwegler (3 ed., espe- 
cially, by Kb'stlin, Freiburg, 1883) treated the same subject. 
All these valuable works, and with them the numerous 
synopses, compendiums, and compilations (see Ueberweg, 



INTRODUCTION 15 

above mentioned, pp. 27-29), are overshadowed beside that 
masterpiece and, for many reasons, final word upon ancient 
philosophy : E. Zeller, Die Philosophic der Griechen (Tu- 
bingen, 1844 ff. : the first book is published in the fifth edi- 
tion, the second in the fourth edition, the others in the third 
edition). 1 Here, upon the broadest philological-historical 
foundation and upon original sources, a philosophical, 
authoritative, and illuminating statement is given of the 
entire development. Zeller has published a clever sum- 
mary of the whole in G-rundriss d. Gesch. der Alien Philos. 
(4 ed., Leipzig, 1893). 

The special sides of ancient philosophy have been presented 
in the following notable works : — 

Logic : K. Prantl, Gesch. d. Logik im Abendlande (vols. 1 and 
2, Leipzig, 1855 and 1861) ; P. Natorp, Forschungen z. Gesch. 
des Erkenntnissproblems im Altertum (Berlin, 1884) ; Giov. 
Cesca, La teoria della conoscenza nella jilos. greca (Verona, 
1887). 

Psychology: H. Siebeck, Gesch. d. Psy. (vol. 1, Gotha, 1880 
and 1884) ; A. E. Chaignet, Histoire de la psy. des grecs 
(Paris, 1887-92). 

Ethics : L. v. Henning, D. Prinzipien d. Ethik, etc. (Berlin, 
1825) ; E. Teuerlein, D. philos. Sittenlehre in ihren geschicht- 
lichen Hauptformen (Tubingen, 1857 and 1859) ; Paul Janet, 
Histoire de la philosophie morale et politique (Paris, 1858) ; J. 
Mackintosh, The Progress of Ethical Philosophy (London, 1862) ; 
W. Whewell, Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy 
(London, 1862) ; E. Blakey, History of Moral Science (Edin- 
burgh, 1863); L. Schmidt, D. Ethik d. al. Griechen (Berlin, 
1881) ; Th. Zeigler, D. Ethik d. Or. u. Homer (Bonn, 1881) ; 

C. Kostlin, Gesch. d. Ethik (1 vol., Tubingen, 1887) ; especially 
compare R. Eucken, D. Lebensanschauungen d. grossen Denker 
(Leipzig, 1890). 

The following particularly treat special topics : M. Heinze, 

D. Lehre v. Logos (Leipzig, 1872) ; D. Lehre d. Eudaemonismus 
in griech. Philos. (Leipzig, 1884) ; CI. Baumcker, Das Problem 
d. Materie in d. griech. Philos. (Mlinster, 1890) ; J. Walter, 
Gesch. d. Aesthetik im Altertum (Leipzig, 1893). 

1 Referred to in this work usually as I 5 ., II 4 . , etc. — Tr. 



16 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

A. GREEK PHILOSOPHY 

Introduction 

The Preliminary Conditions of Philosophy in the Greek 
Intellectual Life of the Seventh and Sixth Centuries B. C. 1 

7. The history of the philosophy of the Greeks, like the 
history of their political development, requires a larger con- 
ception of the geography of the country than the present 
conception of its political relations would imply. Our 
usual present idea of ancient Greece is of a country 
wherein Athens by its literature overshadowed the other 
portions, and by the brilliancy of its golden age eclipsed its 
earlier history. Ancient Greece was the Grecian sea with 
all its coasts from Asia Minor to Sicily and from Cyrene to 
Thrace. The natural link of the three great continents was 
this sea, with its islands and coasts occupied by the most 
gifted of people, which from the earliest historical times 
had settled all its coasts. (Homer.) Within this circle, 
the later so-called Motherland, the Greece of the continent 
of Europe, played at the beginning a very subordinate role. 
In the development of Greek culture, however, leadership 
fell to that branch of the race which in its entire history 
was in closest contact with the Orient, the Ionians. ^ This 
race laid the foundation of later Greek development, and 
by its commercial activity established the power of Greece. 
At first as seafarers and sea-robbers in the train of the 
Phoenicians, in the ninth and eighth centuries the Ionians 
won an increasing independence, and in the seventh cen- 
tury they commanded the world's trade between the three 
continents. 

Over the entire Mediterranean, from the Black Sea to 
the Pillars of Hercules, the Greek colonies and trade cen- 

1 Reference should be made to corresponding sections in historical 
parts of this book for details. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY 17 

tres were extended. Even Egypt opened its treasures to 
the enterprising Ionian spirit. At the head of these cities 
of commerce, and at the same time the leader of the Ionian 
League, Miletus appeared in the seventh century as the 
most powerful and most notable centre of the Greek genius. 
It likewise became the cradle of Greek science. For here 
in Ionia of Asia Minor the riches of the entire world were 
heaped together ; here Oriental luxury, pomp, material 
pleasure held their public pageants ; here began to awaken 
the sense of the beauty of living and the love of higher 
ideals, while rude customs still ruled upon the continent of 
Europe. x The spirit became free from the pressure of daily 
need, and in its play created the works of noble leisure, of 
art, and of science. \ The cultured man is he who in his • 
leisure does not become a mere idler. 

8. Thus, while wealth acquired from trade afforded the 
basis for the free mental development of the Greek, so, on 
the other hand, this same wealth led to changes of polit- 
ical and social conditions which were likewise favorable to 
the development of intellectual life. Originally, aristo- 
cratic families had ruled Ionian cities, and they were 
probably descended from the warlike bands that in the so- 
called Ionian migration from the continent of Europe had 
settled the islands. But in time, through their commerce, 
there grew up a class of well-conditioned citizens, who re- 
stricted and opposed the power of the aristocracy. On the 
one hand bold and ambitious, on the other thoughtful and 
patriotic men took advantage of these democratic ten- 
dencies, and after destroying the power of the oligarchy 
tried to set up monarchies and equalize, as far as possible, 
the interests of all classes. 

The tyranny based on democratic principles is the typical 
governmental rule of this time, and extended its power, 
although not without vigorous and often long partisan 
struggles, from Asia Minor across the islands even to 

2 



/ 



i8 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

European Greece. Thrasybulus in Miletus, Polycrates in 
Samos, Pittacus in Lesbos, Periander in Corinth, Peisistra- 
tus in Athens, Gelon and Hiero in Syracuse, — these men 
had courts that at this time constituted the centres of in- 
tellectual life. They drew poets to them ; they founded 
libraries ; they supported every movement in art and sci- 
ence. But, on the other hand, this political overthrow 
drove the aristocrats into gloomy retirement. Discon- 
tented with public affairs, the aristocrats withdrew to pri- 
vate life, which they adorned with the gifts of the Muses. 
Heracleitus is a conspicuous example of this state of 
affairs. Thus the reversed relations favored in many ways 
the unfolding and extending of intellectual interests. 

This enrichment of consciousness, this increase in a 
higher culture among the Greeks of the seventh and sixth 
centuries, showed itself first in the development of lyric 
poetry, in which the gradual transition from the expression 
of universal religious and political feeling to that which is 
personal and individual formed a typical process. In the 
passion and excitement of internecine political conflict, 
the individual becomes conscious of his independence and 
worth, and he " girds up his loins " to assert his rights 
everywhere. In the course of time satirical poetry grew 
y/ beside the lyric, as the expression of a keen and cleverly 
developed individual judgment. There was, moreover, still 
more characteristic evidence of the spirit of the time in the 
so-called Gnomic poetry, the content of which is made up 
of sententious reflections upon moral principles. This sort 
of moralizing, which appeared also in fable-poetry and in- 
other literature, may be regarded as symptomatic of the 
deeper stirring of the national spirit. 

9. Now, any extended reflection upon maxims of moral 
judgment shows immediately that the validity of morality 
has been questioned in some way, that social consciousness 
has become unsettled, and that the individual in his growing 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY 19 

independence has transcended the bounds authoritatively 
drawn by the universal consciousness. Therefore it was 
entirely characteristic of this Gnomic poetry to recommend 
moderation ; to show how universal standards of life had 
been endangered by the unbridled careers of single per- 
sons, and how in the presence of threatening or present 
anarchy the individual must try to re-establish these rules 
through independent reflection. 

The end of the seventh and the beginning of the sixth 
centuries in Greece formed, therefore, an epoch of peculiar y 
ethical reflection, which is usually called, after the manner 
of the ancients, the Age of the Seven Wise Men. It was an 
age of reflection. The simple devotion to the conventions 
of the previous age had ceased, and social consciousness was 
profoundly disturbed. Individuals began to go their own 
ways. Notable men appeared, and earnestly exhorted x 
society to come back to its senses. Rules of life were 
established. In riddle, in anecdote, in epigram, the moral- 
izing sermon was made palatable, and " winged words " 
passed from mouth to mouth. But, let it be remembered, 
these homilies are possible only when the individual op- 
poses the vagaries of the mob, and with independent judg- 
ment brings to consciousness the maxims of right conduct. 

Tradition selected early seven of such men, to whom it 
gave the name of the Wise Men. They were not men of 
erudition, nor of science, but men of practical wisdom, and 
in the main of remarkable political ability. 2 They pointed 
out the right thing to do in critical moments, and therefore 

1 With this conception about the Seven Wise Men, it is conceivable 
that Plato (Protag., 343 a) should characterize them as forerunners of 
the old strong Dorian morality in contrast to the innovations of the 
Ionian movement : fyXcoTcu ml ipaarai kol fiaOrjTal rrjs AaneBaifxoptcov 
TTOlbeias. 

2 Dicaiarchus called them ovre aocpovs ovre <fii\oo-6<povs, avverovs be 
rivas kol vofioderiKovs. Diog. Laert., I. 40. 



20 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

in public and private matters were authorities to their 
fellow-citizens. The spirit of Gnomic poetry was prom- 
inent in the apothegms, the catchwords, which they are 
supposed to have uttered. Nothing was repeated by them 
so often and with so many phrasings as the fArjSev ayav ! 

Tradition is not agreed as to the names of " the Seven." 
Four l only are mentioned by all: Bias of Priene, who upon the 
invasion of the Persians recommended to the Ionians a migra- 
tion to Sardinia ; Pittacus, who was tyrant of Mitylene, about 
600 b. c. ; Solon, the law-giver of Athens and the Gnomic poet ; 
Thales, founder of the Milesian philosophy, who advised the 
Ionians to form a federation with a joint council in Teos. The 
names of the others vary. The later age ascribed to the Seven 
all kinds of aphorisms, letters, etc. (collected and translated 
into German, but without critical investigation, by C. Dilthey, 
Darmstadt, 1835). 2 

While in this way, through political and social relations, 
the independence of individual judgment was educated 
first on its practical side, and the propensity was formed 
for expressing such judgment, it was an inevitable con- 
sequence that a similar emancipation of single individuals 
from the ordinary way of thinking should take place within 
the domain of theory. Independent judgment naturally ap- 
peared at this point, and formed its own views about the 
connection of things. Nevertheless this propensity could 
manifest itself only in a revision and reconstruction of 
those materials, which the individuals discovered partly in 
the intellectual treasures accumulated previously in the 
nation's practical life, and partly in the religious ideas. 

10. The practical knowledge of the Greeks had in- 
creased to very remarkable dimensions between the time of 
Hesiod's Works and Days and the year 600 b. c. The 
inventive, trade-driving Ionians undoubtedly had learned 
very much from the Orientals, with whom they had inter- 

1 Compare Cic. Rep., I. 12. Also Lael., 7. 

2 Brunco, Aet. Sem.-ErL, III. 299 ff. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY 21 

course and of whom they were rivals. Among these, 
especially among the Egyptians, Phoenicians, and Assyrians, 
there existed knowledge that had been garnered through 
many centuries, and it is incredible that the Greeks should 
not have appropriated it wherever opportunity offered. 

The question how much the Greeks learned from the Orient 
has passed through many stages. In opposition to the un- 
critical, often fantastic, and untenable statements of the later 
Greeks, who tried to derive everything important of their own 
teaching from the honorable antiquity of Oriental tradition, 
later philology, in its admiration for everything Greek, has 
persistently espoused the theory of an autochthonic genesis. 
But the more the similarities with the Oriental civilization, 
and the relations between the different forms of the old and 
the Greek culture have been brought to the light by acquaint- 
ance with the ancient Orient, dating from the beginning of 
this century ; and the more, on the other hand, philosophy 
understood the continuity of the historical moments of civiliza- 
tion ; so much the more decided became the tendency to refer 
the beginnings of Greek science to Oriental influences, particu- 
larly in the history of philosophy. With brilliant fancy A. Roth 
(Gesch. unserer abendlandiscJien PJiilos., Mannheim, 1858 f.,) 
attempted to rehabilitate the accounts of the neo-Platonists, 
who by interpretation and perversion had read into the mythic 
narratives, which were introduced from the Orient, Greek philo- 
sophical doctrines ; he then rediscovered these doctrines as prime- 
val wisdom. With a forced construction, Gladisch (D. Religion 
u. d. Philos. in Hirer weltgesch. Entwick., Breslau, 1852) tried to 
see in all the beginnings of Greek philosophy direct relations 
to individual Oriental peoples ; and he so conceived the re- 
lationship that the Greeks are supposed to have appropriated in 
succession the ripe products of all the other civilizations. 
This appears from the following titles of his special essays : 
Die Pythagoreer und die Schinesen (Posen, 1841) ; Die Eleaten 
und die Indier (Posen, 1844) ; EmpedoMes und die Egypter 
(Leipzig, 1858) ; Heracleitos und Zoroaster (Leipzig, 1859) ; 
Anaxagoras und Israeliten (Leipzig, 1864). Besides the fact 
that they first found many analogies through an artful in- 
terpretation, both Goth and Gladisch fell into the error of 
transmuting analogies into causal relations, where equally 
notable disparities might also have been found. Moreover, 
where, as usual, religion is concerned, that of the Greeks, which 



22 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

has influenced the beginnings of science in so many ways, was 
found to be in genetic and historical relationship with that of 
the Orient. 

Such exaggerations are certainly censurable. But, on the 
other hand, it would be denying the existence of the sun at 
noontide to refuse to acknowledge that the Greeks in great 
measure owe their information to contact with the barbarians. 
It is here even as in the history of art. The Greeks imported 
a large amount of information out of the Orient. This con- 
sisted in special facts of knowledge, particularly of a mathe- 
matical and astronomical kind, and consisted perhaps besides in 
certain mythological ideas. But with the recognition of this sit- 
uation, which recognition in the long run is inevitable, one does 
not rob the Greeks in the least of their true originality. For as 
they in art derived particular forms and norms from Egyptian 
and Assyrian tradition, but in the employment and reconstruction 
of these used their own artistic genius, so there flowed in upon 
them too from the Orient many kinds of knowledge, arising out 
of the work and practical needs of many centuries, and various 
kinds of mythological tales, born of the religious imagination. 
But nevertheless they were the first to transmute this knowledge 
into a wisdom sought on account of itself. This spirit of sci- 
ence, like their original activity, resulted from emancipated and 
independent individual thought, to which Oriental civilization 
had not attained. 

Principally in mathematics and astronomy do the Greeks 
appear as the pupils of the Orientals. Since economic needs 
compelled the Phoenicians to make an arithmetic, and from 
early times led the Egyptians to construct a geometry, it is 
probable that in these things the Greeks were pupils rather 
than teachers of their neighbors. A proposition like that 
concerning proportionality and its application to perspective, 
Thales did not communicate to the Egyptians, but derived 
from them. 1 Although there are further ascribed to him 
propositions like that concerning the halving of the circle 
by the diameter, the isosceles triangle, the vertical angles, 
the equality of triangles having a side and two angles equal, 
yet it may be safely concluded in every instance that these 
elementary propositions were generally known to the Greeks 

i See § 24. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY 23 

of his time. It is likewise a matter of indifference whether 
Pythagoras himself discovered the theorem named after him 
or whether his school established it, whether the discovery 
was the result of pure geometrical reasoning or was an actual 
measurement with the square and by an arithmetical calcu- 
lation, as Roth says. Here, again, the reality of such knowl- 
edge at that time is rendered certain, and its suggestion, at 
least, from the Oriental circle is probable. In any case, 
however, these studies in Greece soon flourished in a high 
degree. Anaxagoras was reported, for instance, to have 
busied himself in prison with the squaring of the circle. 
Astronomical thought had a similar status, for Thales pre- 
dicted an eclipse of the sun, and it is highly probable that 
he here availed himself of the Chaldasan Saros. On the 
other hand, the cosmographical ideas ascribed to the oldest 
philosophers point to an Egyptian origin, especially that 
view, authoritative for later time, of concentric spherical 
shells in which the planets were supposed to move around 
the earth as a centre. From all reports it appears that the 
questions concerning the constitution of the world, of the 
size, distance, form, and rotation of the planets, of the incli- 
nation of the ecliptic, etc., keenly interested every one of 
the ancient thinkers. The Milesians still thought the earth 
to be flat, cylindrical, or plate-shaped, floating upon a dark, 
cold atmosphere and in the middle of a world sphere. The 
Pythagoreans seem to be the first independently to discover 
the spherical shape of the earth. In the physics of this 
time the interest in meteorology is dominant. Every phi- 
losopher felt bound to explain the clouds, air, wind, snow, 
hail, and ice. Not until later did an interest in biology 
awaken, and the mysteries of reproduction and propagation 
called forth a multitude of fantastic hypotheses (Parmeni- 
des, Empedocles, etc.). 

Deficiency in physiological and anatomical knowledge 
obviously delayed for a long time the progress of medical 



24 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

science. Therefore we are safe in saying 1 that medical 
science was inherited in its original tradition entirely inde- 
pendently of all other sciences as the esoteric teaching of 
certain priestly families ; and that philosophy also hardly 
had any connection with medicine down to about the time 
of the Pythagoreans. Medicine consisted simply in empir- 
ical rules, technical facts, and a mass of data accumulated 
during the experience of centuries. It was not an aetiological 
science, but an art practised in the spirit of religion. We 
have still the oath of the Asclepiades (a priestly order of 
this sort, which however had also lay brethren), who as well 
as the gymnasts practised the art of healing. Such medical 
orders or schools existed notably in Rhodes, Cyrene, Cro- 
tona, Cos, and Cnidus. Rules for the treatment of the sick 
were partly codified in documents, and Hippocrates knew two 
versions of the yvcofiaL Kvihiai (Cnidian sentences), the more 
valuable of which (laTpuccorepov) came from Euryphon of 
Cnidus. 

Likewise the geographical knowledge of the Greeks had 
reached a high degree of completeness about this time. 
The broad commercial activity whereby they visited the 
Mediterranean Sea and all its coasts had essentially trans- 
formed and enriched the Homeric picture of the world. It is 
stated that Anaximander drew up the first map of the world. 
The statement of Herodotus 2 is interesting, that Aris- 
tagoras, by showing such a chart in Lacedsemon, sought to 
awaken the continental Greeks to a realizing sense of the 
menaced geographical situation of Greece by the Persian 
Empire. 

Historical knowledge too was beginning to be accu- 
mulated at this time, — yet strikingly late for a people 
like the Greeks. From the old epic had issued the theo- 
gonic poetry, on the one hand, and the heroic on the other. 

1 H'aser, Lehrbuch d. Gesch. d. Medizin, 2 ed., §§ 21-25. 

2 V. 49. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY 25 

Collections of saga and of the histories of the founding of 
cities, as they had been gathered by the logographers, were 
added to these for the first time in the Ionian cities of Asia 
Minor. Men, who after long journeys gave to their logog- 
raphies greater extent and variety of interest, introduced 
then that form of historical presentation which we may 
still recognize in Herodotus. At the same time, however, 
this was pressed into the background by the grouping of all 
accounts around the important event of the Persian wars. 
In place of fantastic fables about strange people in the 
form that Aristeas of Proconnesus related them, we now 
have the more sober reports of the logographers. Of these 
there appeared, in the sixth century, Cadmus, Dionysius, 
and especially Hecateius of Miletus, with his nrepL^^cr^, in 
which geography and history are closely interwoven. In 
these men realistic considerations had taken the place of 
sesthetical, and their writings therefore have the prose 
rather than the poetic form. 

About 600 b. c. the intellectual circle of the Greeks was 
replete with this manifold and important knowledge, and it 
is clear that there were men, otherwise favorably conditioned 
in life, who took a direct and immediate interest in knowl- 
edge which had hitherto been employed for the most varied 
practical ends. They planned how to order, classify, and 
extend these acquisitions. It is likewise comprehensible 
how scientific schools for the same purposes were formed, 
as it might happen, around distinguished men, and how in 
these schools by co-operative labor a kind of scholastic 
order and tradition maintained itself from one generation 
to another. 

After the investigations of H. Diels (Philos. Aufsatze z. Zel- 
lerjubilaum, Berlin, 1887, p. 241 f.) it can scarcely be doubted 
that in this very early time the scientific life of the Greeks 
constituted itself into closed corporations, and that the learned 
societies already at that time carried all the weight of judicial- 
religious associations (Oiacroi) which v. Wilamowitz-Mollendorf 



26 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

(Antigonos von Karystos, p. 263 f.) has already proved for the 
later schools. The Pythagoreans were undoubtedly such an 
association. The schools of physicians were organized on the 
same principle, — perhaps still more rigorously in the form of 
the priestly orders. Why, then, should this not be the case 
with the schools of Miletus, Elea, and Abdera? 

11. Likewise, in the religious notions of the Greeks lay 
certain definite points of departure for the beginnings of 
their philosophy, especially since those religious notions 
were in the liveliest fermentation about the time of the 
seventh and sixth centuries. This is accounted for by 
the great vitality which from the beginning characterized 
the religious existence of the Greeks by reason of their 
unparalleled development. Out of the early differentiation 
of originally common ideas, out of the capricious formation 
of local cults within families, tribes, cities, and provinces, 
incidentally also out of the introduction of distinctive 
foreign religious ceremonies, there grew up a rich and, as 
it were, confusingly iridescent variety of religions. Stand- 
ing over against this, epic poetry had already created its 
Olympus, its poetic purification, and its human ennobling 
of the original, mythical forms. These products of poetry 
came to be the national religious property of the Hellenes. 
But along with the veneration of these products there 
were the old cults that shut themselves up only the more 
closely in the Mysteries, in which now as ever the peculiar 
energy of religious craving expressed itself in a service 
of expiation and redemption. With the advance of civiliza- 
tion, however, the aesthetic mythology succumbed to a 
gradual change in two directions which had been blended 
indistinguishably in the Olympian forms. The first direc- 
tion was toward mythical explanation of nature ; the second 
was toward ethical idealizing. 

The first tendency showed itself in the development of 
the cosmogonic out of the epic poetry. Cosmogonic poetry 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY 27 

shows how the individual poets with their peculiar fancies 
studied the question of the origin of things, and in addition 
mythologized the great powers of nature in a traditional or 
freely creative form. Two groups can be distinguished 
among them, corresponding to the different interpreta- 
tions of Homeric poetry. Such of the Orphic theogonies, 
which go back thus far, belong, with the sole exception of 
Hesiod, to one group, and Epimenides and Acusilaus are 
among its better defined historic names. Whether they 
presuppose only Chaos or Night as the original powers, 
or whether with these Air, Earth, Heaven, or something 
else, — they appear reasonably enough in Aristotle as ol i/c 
vvktos yevvcovTes OeoXoyoi. For it is always some dark and 
reasonless primeval ground from which they evolve material 
things, and they may be considered as representatives of 
the evolutionist idea. Likewise in this respect Milesian 
science followed immediately in their wake, and had in 
part the same principles but with greater clearness of 
thought (§§ 14-16). Over against these was the later ten- 
dency whose representatives were regarded by Aristotle as 
standing between the poets and philosophers (/xefjucy/juevoi 
aurcov). By these the Perfect was supposed as the form- 
ing (creative) principle at the beginning of time. To 
them belongs, besides the entirely mythical Hermotimus of 
Clazomenas, 1 the historical Pherecydes of Syrus, a contem- 
porary of the earliest philosophers and a man who wrote 
his conceptions in prose. He presupposed Zeus as the per- 
sonality giving order and reason to the world, and that 
Time 2 and Earth act with Zeus as original principles 
(Xpovos, %#aw). He appears to have represented in grotesque 
images the " five-fold " development of individual things 
out of the rational principle. 

1 Whom some try to identify with Anaxagoras. See Cams, Nach- A 
gelassene WerJce, 4 vols., 330 f. ; Zeller, I 4 . 924 f. 

2 XP° V0S ma y mean something else. Zeller, I 4 . 73. 



y 



28 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

Sturz (Leipzig, 1834) has published the fragments of 
Pherecydes. Roth, out of most uncertain data, Gesch. .unserer 
abendlandischen Philos., II. 161 f., tried to attribute to Phere- 
cydes the introduction into Greece of Egyptian metaphysics 
and astronomy. J. Conrad (Coblenz, 1857), R. Zimmermann, 
Studien u. Kritiken (Vienna, 1870, If.), also treat the "phi- 
losophy" of Pherecydes. See H. Diels, Arch. f. Gesch. d. 
Philos., I. 11. 



These later cosmogonies were apparently already under 
the influence of the ethical movement, which had pressed 
into the circle of religious ideas, and, as against the nature- 
mythical interpretation that ascribed aesthetic character to 
the different gods, sought to embody in them the ideal of 
moral life. The second tendency comes to light in the 
Gnomic poetry in particular. Zeus is thus (Solon) honored 
less as creator of Nature than as ruler of the moral world. 
The fifth century, in following out this idea, saw the 
Homeric mythology expressed completely in ethico-alle- 
gorical terms (especially ascribed to Metrodorus of Lamp- 
sacus, a pupil of Anaxagoras). Three moments especially 
in the ethicizing of religious ideas appear : (1) the gradual 
stripping off of naive anthropomorphism from the gods, 
which led to a violent opposition to aesthetic mythology on 
the part of Xenophanes, who was a direct descendant in this 
respect of the Gnomic poets ; (2) necessarily connected 
with the above, the development of the monotheistic germs 
contained in the previous ideas ; (3) the emphasis on the 
thought of moral retribution in the form of faith in immor- 
tality and transmigration. So far as the last two thoughts 
belonged with a greater or less degree of clearness also to 
the Mysteries, they were in some degree the centre of an 
ethical reaction against the pantheon " constructed by the 
poets." 
A 12. In this direction tended the great movement which 

shook the western part of civilized Greece about the end of 
the sixth century, and in many ways influenced the devel- 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 29 

opment of science. This movement is the ethico-religious 
reformation of Pythagoras. 

It is absolutely necessary, in the interest of historical clear- 
ness, to distinguish Pythagoras from the Pythagoreans, and the 
practice of the former from the science of the latter. The in- 
vestigations of modern time have more and more led to this 
distinction. The accounts of the later ancients (neo-Pythago- 
rean and neo-Platonic) had gathered so many myths about the 
personality of Pythagoras, and had so ascribed to him the ripest 
and highest thoughts of Greek philosophy through direct and 
indirect falsification, that he became a mysterious and entirely 
inconceivable form. But the fact that the cloud of myths 
should thicken from century to century in ancient time around 
him, makes it necessary 1 to go back to the oldest and, at 
the same time, most authoritative accounts. Therein it ap- 
pears that neither Plato nor Aristotle knew anything about 
a philosophy of Pythagoras, but simply make mention of a 
philosophy of the " so-called Pythagoreans." Nowhere is the 
"number theory" referred to the "Master" himself. It is 
also to be regarded as highly probable that Pythagoras himself 
wrote nothing. At any rate, nothing is preserved which can be 
confidently attributed to him, and neither Plato nor Aristotle 
knew of anything of the sort. On the other hand, the first philo- 
sophical writing of the school is that of Philolaus, 2 the con- 
temporary of Anaxagoras, and therefore of Socrates and 
Democritus. This philosophic teaching will be set forth in 
the place which belongs to it chronologically in the develop- 
ment of Greek philosophy (§ 24). Pythagoras himself, how- 
ever, in the light of historical criticism, appears only as a kind 
of founder of religion, and a man of grand ethical and political 
efficiency. His work had an important place among the causes 
and the preliminary conditions of the scientific life in Greece. 

Concerning the life of Pythagoras little is certain. He came 
from an old Tyrrhean-Phliasian stock, which had migrated to 
his home, Samos, at the latest in the time of his grandfather. 
Here he was born, somewhere between the years 580 and 570, 
as the son of Mnesarchus, a rich merchant. It is not impos- 
sible that differences that arose between him and Polycrates, or 
the antipathy of the aristocrat to this tyrant, drove him out of 

1 See Zeller, I 4 . 256 ff., against A. K6th(Gesc7i.unsererabendlan. Phi- 
los., II. b, 261 f., 48 f.). Zeller shows clearly that Pythagoras had no 
philosophy. 

2 Dio2. Laert, VIII. 15, 85. 



30 HISTORY OP ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

Samos, where he seems to have entered already upon a career 
similar to that of his later life. It is not to be determined 
with perfect surety, but may be regarded as by no means im- 
probable, that he made a kind of educative journey to investi- 
gate the sanctuaries and cults of Greece. At this time he 
came to know Pherecydes. This journey may have extended 
also into foreign lands as far as Egypt. 1 About the year 530, 
however, he settled in Magna Grsecia, the region where (at 
a time when Ionia already was struggling with Persia for 
existence) were brought together, in the most splendid way, 
Greek power and Greek culture. Here was still a more motley 
mixture of Hellenic stocks, and here between cities, and in the 
cities between parties, the battle for existence was most passion- 
ately waged. Pythagoras appeared here and preached, founded 
his new sect, and met with the most decided success. He 
chose the austere and aristocratic Crotona as the centre of his 
operations. It appears that his sect co-operated in the decisive 
battle (510 b. c.) in which Crotona destroyed its democratic 
rival, the voluptuous Sybaris. But very soon after that event 
democracy became predominant in Crotona itself and in other 
cities, and the Pythagoreans were cruelly persecuted. These 
persecutions were more than once repeated in the first half of 
the fifth century, and the sect was entirely dispersed. Whether 
Pythagoras in one of these persecutions, perhaps even in the 
very first instigated by Cylon in 504, found his end, or whether 
in another way, or where, when, and how, is uncertain. His 
death is surrounded by myths, but we shall have to place it 
at about 500. 

Jamblichus, De vita Pythagorica, and Porphyry, De vita 
Pythagorce (ed. Kissling, Leipzig, 1815-16, etc.), H. Ritter, 
Geschichte der pythagorischen Philosophie (Hamburg, 1826) ; B. 
Krische, De societatis a Pythagora in urbe Crotoniatarum con- 
duce, scopo politico (Gottingen, 1830) ; E. Zeller, Pyth. u. die 
Pyth.-saga, Yortrag u. Abhdl. I. (Leipzig, 1865) 30 ft. ; Ed. 
Chaignet, Pythagore et la philosophie pythagoricienne (Paris, 
1873) ; L. v. Schroeder, Pyth. u. d. Inder (Leipzig, 1884) ; P. 
Tannery, Arch. f. Gesch. d. Ph., I. 29 ff. 

On the one hand, Pythagoras found his purpose in the 
moral clarification and purification of the world of religious 

1 There is scarcely a ground for doubting the testimony of Isocrates 
(Busir, 11). The circumstances of the second half of the sixth century 
make it appear as in no wise an exceptional case that the son of a patri- 
cian of Samos should journey to Egypt. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY 31 

ideas. He stood in this respect entirely in line with the 
progress and innovation of the time, and he antagonized, as 
a point of view antiquated or coming to be so, the religion 
of the poets, in which he missed a moral earnestness. On 
the other hand, he was inspired by the same ethical impulse 
against that weakening of the moral bond to which the 
new methods of Greek social life threatened to lead, and 
in fact had already lecLj He called, therefore, for a return 
to the old institutions and convictions. Especially in 
politics, he represented a reaction in favor of the aristoc- 
racy as opposed to the growing democratic movement. This 
opposition determined the peculiar position of the Pythag- 
orean society. The society was, in truth, one of the most 
important factors in the religious and intellectual advance 
of the Greek spirit, and at the same time it flung itself 
against the current of the time as regards ethics and 
politics. 1 As to the latter, the Ionian Pythagoras preferred 
the more conservative Dorian character, and the " Italian 
philosophy" founded by him passed among the ancients 
as an antithesis to the Ionian. 



The emphasis upon the unity of the divine Being and a 
purely moral conception of the same was carried no farther 
by Pythagoras and by the Pythagoreans than by the Gnomic 
poets. Neither was the conception of the purely spiritual here 
attained, nor a scientific foundation and presentation given 
to ethical concepts, nor, finally, a sharp contradiction made to 
the polytheistic popular religion. (Of course we do not in- 
clude in this statement the doctrines of the neo-Pythagorean 
and neo-Platonic schools.) On the contrary, Pythagoras had 
the pedagogic acumen to develop these higher conceptions from 
those existing in the myths and religious ceremonies. He used 
in this way the Mysteries, especially the Orphic, and he himself 
appears to have been connected with the cult of Apollo in 
particular. He laid particular emphasis upon the doctrine of 
immortality and its application to a theory of moral religious 
retribution, and this also took the mythic form of the doctrine 

1 Similarly and on a larger scale this is repeated by Plato's work. 



32 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

of metempsychosis. But doubtless the Mysteries themselves 
contained much in harmony with the doctrine of transmigra- 
tion, especially those Mysteries of the chthonic divinities. 
But to the ordinary Greeks transmigration was and remained 
a foreign conception, which in early times they had mocked 
at, 1 and they were most inclined to lay it at the door of foreign 
influence. 

Whatever of the Pythagorean ethical teaching is certainly 
proved, may be found in the Gnomic teachings. But at all 
events we see there, in the consciousness of duty, in introspec- 
tion, and in subordination to authority, a greater earnestness 
and rigor, with at the same time a decided abandonment of 
sense-pleasure and a powerful tendency to spiritualize life. 2 
Many ascetic tendencies doubtless were already connected 
with this. The pronounced political turn which Pythagoras 
at the same time gave to his society determined its fate and 
led it first to victory, then to destruction. Yet this political 
tendency is not to be regarded as original, but as the natural 
consequence of the moral-religious ideal of life. 

In order to attain such a goal, Pythagoras founded at 
first in Crotona his religious society, which soon spread 
over a greater part of Magna Graecia. But this sect was, 
to be sure, at first only a kind of Mysteries, and nearest 
related to it were the Orphics. It is to be distinguished 
from these only so far as it expressly determined also the 
political and in part even the private life of its members by 
its regulations. It sought to evolve also a general educa- 
tion and an all-round method of life out of its moral- 
religious principle. Its most commendable feature was, 
that within the society the external goods of life were 
relatively little prized, and the common activities were 
directed toward fostering science and art. Thus, the 
religious in time became a scientific dlacros. To Pythago- 
ras himself may be referred the thorough study of music, 

1 See Xenophanes' witty distich against it : Diog. Laert., VIII. 36. 

2 The so-called " golden poem " wherein the Pythagorean rules of 
life are laid down was, according to Mullaeh, collated by Lysis. Zeller 
is certainly right in saying that it was probably earlier handed down 
in verse form. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY 33 

and perhaps in the same connection the beginnings of 
mathematical investigations which therefore, like medicine, 
have a point of departure equally independent of that of 
" general philosophy." 1 

It is no longer certain how much the society directed by 
Pythagoras himself was in possession of all of the rules by which, 
according to later accounts, the community life of the members, 
their initiation, their education even to the particulars of each 
day's duties, were provided for. The conception taken from 
later analogies is scarcely credible, that the Pythagoreans 
were a secret society in which the novitiate first after a long 
preparation and after the performance of many symbolical 
formalities could share in the " mysteries." Roth in particular 
has tried to re-establish this distinction of the esoteric and ex- 
oteric. Pythagoreanism was certainly no more and no less 
a secret society than all the other Mysteries, and there is not 
the slightest ground for assuming a secret science in it. That 
•the stimulus given by Pythagoras to the spiritual community 
of life was concerned with music and mathematics, may safely 
be accepted. All else is doubtful, and probably fabulous. So, 
too, it is impossible to find out anything certain as to the founder's 
personal familiarity with these subjects. Even the well-known 
geometrical proposition is not to be attributed to him in entire 
confidence. He himself belongs rather to the religious and 
political life. But the spirit in which he founded his school 
was of such a nature that scientific interest could and actually 
did flourish in it. 

13. In Greek national life such were the essential condi- 
tions for the origin of the philosophy which appeared at the 
beginning of the sixth century as an independent phenom- 
enon. Its entire course, however, since it was dependent 
upon the general civilization of the nation, shows a gradual 
drifting from circumference to centre. The beginnings lie 
scattered in those circles of Hellenic life where, in friendly 
as well -as in hostile contact with neighboring peoples, it 
first developed into full independence. Afterwards in the 
entire Sophistic Enlightenment philosophy centred itself in 

1 See G. Cantor, Vorlesungen uber d. Gesch. d. Math., I. 125 f. 

3 



34 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

the Athens of Pericles ; and there through the great per- 
sonality of Socrates it became naturalized, it perfected itself, 
and established its great schools. 

Subjectively viewed, the development of Greek science is 
a fully rounded whole. Like all naive and natural think- 
ing, it began with a recognition of the outer world. Its first 
tendency was entirely cosmological, and it passed through 
the physical into metaphysical problems. Foundering in 
these and at the same time troubled by the dialectic of 
public life, the Spirit made itself an object of reflection. 
An anthropological period began, in which man appeared 
as the most worthy object of consideration, and ultimately 
as the only object of investigation. Finally, science in its 
perfected strength, acquired in the profound study of the 
laws of its reason, turned back to the old problems, the 
conquest of which came to it now in great systematic 
continuity. 

See § 2, note. — Hegel, Gesch. der Philos., Complete Works, 
Vol. XIII. 188. If one strips away the formal from Hegel's 
terminology, which served him in his systematization of the 
historical processes, then one meets here, as so often in Hegel, 
an inspired insight, with which he apprehended the essential 
features in the development of historical phenomena. 

The origins of scientific reflection are to be sought in the 
cities of the seacoast of Ionia, which were in a flourishing 
condition about 600 b. c. The happy nature of the Ionian 
race was here accompanied by all the necessary material, 
social, and intellectual requisitions for science. Its men- 
tal alertness, its frequently dangerous curiosity for the novel, 
and its creative talent were remarkable. Here, for the 
first time, mature minds brought their independent judg- 
ment to bear not only upon practical but upon theoretical 
questions. 1 The idea of the connection of things was no 

1 Plutarch Sol, 3 (concerning Thales) : irepairepco rrjs xp*" 1 * e^iKeadai 
tji Becopia. 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY 35 

longer formed after the models of mythology, but by per- 
sonal reflection and meditation. Nevertheless these new 
endeavors leading to science grew out of the circle of reli- 
gious ideas, and thereby did science prove itself to be one 
of the functions which had been differentiated out of the 
original religious life of human society. At first science 
treated the same problems that concerned mythological 
fancy. The difference between the two does not Ke in 
their subject matter, but in the form of their interrogation 
and the nature of their reply. Science begins where a 
conceptual problem takes the place of curiosity as to se- 
quences, and where, therefore, fancies and fables are 
replaced by the investigations of permanent relations. 

The common task for the Greek philosopher lay in the 
necessity to understand the change of things, their origi- 
nation, destruction, and transmutation into one another. 
This very change, this process of happening (Gescheheto) 
was accepted as a matter of course, and was not required 
to be explained or reduced to its causes. It had rather to 
be described, objectified, and conceptually stated. The myth 
accomplished this in the form of a narrative. To the ques- 
tion, What existed previously ? it made answer with a 
description of the origin of the world, and tells of the 
battles of Titans and how they finally produced this world. 
Among men of science this interest in the past gave way 
to an interest in what is permanent. They no longer 
asked for the temporal but for the real prius of perceived 
Being. Face to face with the perpetual vicissitudes of in- 
dividual things, they expressed the thought of a world- 
unity, by asking what is permanent amid the changes. 
Consequently they formed as the goal of their research 
the concept of a world-stuff that changes into all things, 
and into which all things return when these things vanish 
from perception. The idea of a temporal origin of things 
gives place to that of eternal Being, and thus arises the 



36 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

apXVy 1 the first concept of Greek philosophy. The first 
question of Greek science was, " What is the stuff out of 
which the world is made, and how is the stuff changed 
into single things ? " Science thus arose from cosmogonies 
and theogonies. 

The transition from the myth to science consists in 
stripping off the historical, in rejecting chronological nar- 
ration, and in reflecting upon the Unchangeable. The first 
science was obviously an investigation of nature. 

See S. A. Byk. Die vorsocratische Philos. d. Or. in Hirer organ- 
ischen Gliederung, 2 parts, Leipzig, 1875 and 1877. 

1. The Milesian Nature Philosophy 

14. The principal centre for these beginnings in science 
was the chief of the Ionian cities, Miletus. From two gen- 
erations of scientists in this city, tradition has preserved 
three names : Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes. 2 

1 Arist. Met., I. 3, 983, b. 8. : e| ov yap %o~tiv anapra tcl ovra ml i£ 
ov yiyverai TTparov kcli els o (pOeiperai reXevTcuov, rrjs fiev ovo~tas viro\i£Vov- 
crrjs, toIs Se nddecri fjieTaj3aXXov(rrjs, tovto (TToi^eiov Kai tclvtt)v o.pyT]V cpaaiv 
etvai tG>v ovtcov. Omitting the deduction of the Aristotelian categories, 
ova-la and ndOos, this definition of apx*], which furnishes an immediate 
suggestion of the transition from the temporal to the conceptual, may 
be taken as historical in the sense that it existed among the old Ionians. 
It is of little importance who introduced the term dpxrj in this concep- 
tual way. Simpl. Phys., 6 recto, 24, 13 asserts it to be due to Anaxi- 
mander. The thought was already present in Thales. 

2 It is evident that one need not limit the Milesian philosophy to 
these three well-known men ; but nothing is traditionally certain. 
For the allusion of Theophrastus, who (Simpl. Phys., 6) speaks of pre- 
decessors of Thales, may also be applied to the cosmogonies ; and the 
reports of Aristotle, according to which the physicists were those who 
accepted as dpxrj the intermediaries between air and water (De ccelo, 
III. 5, 303 b, 12) or between air and fire (Phys., I. 4, 187 a, 14) leave 
open the possibility and probability that he has in mind the later eclec- 
tic stragglers. Compare § 25. 









THE MILESIAN NATURE PHILOSOPHY 37 

R. Ritter, Gesch.der ionischen Philosophic (Berlin, 1821) ; R. 
Seydel, Der Fortschritt der Metaphysik unter den dltesten ioni- 
schen Philosophen (Leipzig, 1861) ; P. Tannery, Pour Vhistoire 
de la science hellene, I. (Paris, 1887). 

Thales (about 600 b. c.) answered the question concern- 
ing the substantial constitution of the world (Weltstoff) 
by declaring it to be water. This is the only assertion that 
can be attributed to him with perfect certainty. Even 
Aristotle, 1 who could give only traditional reports concern- 
ing Thales, as early as his time had only conjectures about 
the grounds of this assertion. When Aristotle states that 
the moist character of the animal seed and animal nutri- 
tion was the occasion for this statement of Thales (and to 
Aristotle's inference, 2 all later supplementary conjectures 
appear to refer), we are permitted to attribute this inference 
to the specific interest in biology, which appealed strongly 
to the Stagirite, but, for all we know, not at all to Thales. 
More probable is the conjecture, likewise reported by 
Aristotle, 3 which brings the teaching of Thales into connec- 
tion with ancient cosmological ideas. In these the ocean 
was considered the oldest and most important thing. It 
would be exceedingly strange if the Ionian thinker, in an- 
swer to the question as to the constitution of the world, 
had not decided in favor of the element so important to his 
people. The thought of its infinite mobility, its transfor- 
mation into earth and air, its all-engulfing violence, could 
not but have held an important place in the minds of sea- 
faring folk. The reported cosmographical 4 ideas of Thales 
also agree with this, for he is said to have thought that the 
earth floated in water, and to have given, in connection 
with this, a Neptunian explanation of earthquakes. 

1 Met. , I. 3, 983 b, 22, Aa/Scoi/ 'lams ttjv vTrokrj-^nv. 

2 Plut. Plac.phiL, I. 3 (Dox., 276). Compare Zeller, I 4 . 175, 2. 

3 See beyond. 

4 Arist. De ccelo, II. 13, 294 a, 28. 



V 






38 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

But it makes no difference whether Thales came to his 
assertion more through organic than inorganic observations. 
So much is clear, that the chemical composition of water, 
the pure H 2 0, did not determine his choice of it as the cos- 
mic matter. Rather its fluid state of aggregation and the 
important r61e that it played in the mobile life of nature 
determined his decision, so that in the ancient reports 
vypov is often substituted for vScop. The idea of Thales 
seems to have been to select as the world stuff that form 
of matter, which promised to make most readily compre- 
hensible, the transformation on the one hand to the solid, 
on the other to the volatile. More definite data concern- 
ing the modus operandi of these changes do not appear to 
have been furnished by Thales. It must remain problemat- 
ical whether he, like the later philosophers, conceived this 
process of change as a condensation and rarefaction. 

At any rate, Thales represented this fluid cosmic matter 
as in continuous self-motion. Of a force moving matter 
and distinguishable from it, he taught nothing. 1 In 
naively considering an event as a thing requiring no 
further explanation, he advocated, like his followers, the 
so-called hylozoistic theory, which represents matter as 
eo ipso moving and on that account animated. With this 
are compatible his rravTa irXyprj Oeoov elvai 2 and his ascrip- 
tion of a soul to the magnet. 3 The scientific view of the 
world had obviously at this stage not yet excluded the im- 
aginative view of nature held by Greek mythology. 

1 According to the statements of the later writers (Cicero, Be nat. 
deor., I. 10), Thales placed in antithesis to the cosmic matter the form- 
ing divine spirit. Such statements betray, on the one hand, the termi- 
nology of the Stoics, and on the other lead us to infer a confounding of 
Thales with Anaxagoras. The hylozoism of all the ancient physicists, 
including Thales, is affirmed by Aristotle in Met., I. 3. 

2 Arist. Be anima, I. 5, 411 a, 8. 

3 Ibid., I. 2, 405 a, 20. 



THE MILESIAN NATURE PHILOSOPHY 39 

The time in which Thales lived is determined by an eclipse, 
which he is said to have predicted. In accordance with modern 
investigations (Zech, Astronomische Untersuchungen ilber die 
vjichtigsten Finsternisse, Leipzig, 1853), this must be placed in 
the year 585 b. c. His life falls, at all events, in the nourishing 
period of Miletus under Thrasybulus. The year of his birth 
cannot be exactly determined; his death may be placed 
directly after the Persian invasion in the middle of the sixth 
century (Diels, Ehein. Mus., XXXI. 15 f.). He belonged to 
the old family of the Thelides, which sprang from the Boeotian 
Cadmians, who migrated into Asia Minor. Hence the state- 
ment that he was of Phoenician derivation (Zeller, I 4 . 169, 1). 
See § 9 for his practical and political activity; § 10, for his 
knowledge of mathematics and physics. The Egyptian jour- 
neys which later literature reports, are at least doubtful; 
although, provided that he was engaged in commerce, they are 
not impossible. None of the writings of Thales are cited by 
Aristotle, and it is consequently doubtful if he committed any- 
thing to writing. 

15. If Thales is to be regarded as the first physicist, we 
meet the first metaphysician in the person of his somewhat 
younger countryman, Anaximander (611-545 b. a). For 
his answer to the question concerning the constitution of 
the universe is already to be essentially distinguished, in its 
content as well as in its fundamentals, from that of Thales. 
Thales had sought to find the cosmic matter in the empiri- 
cally known, and had seized upon what appears as the most 
completely mutable, if Anaximander was not content with 
this theory, it was on account of his pronounced principle 1 
that the cosmic matter must be thought as infinite, so that it 
may not be thought to exhaust itself in its creations. From 
this it followed immediately that the cosmic matter cannot 
be found among empirically given forms of matter, all of 
which are limited. Thus there remained for the definition 
of the cosmic matter only the quality of its spatial and 
temporal infinity. Consequently Anaximander said that 
the apxH is the aireipov. 

1 Arist. Phys., III. 8, 208 a, 8-. see Plut. Plac-, I. 3 (Dox., 277), tva 
f) y ive a is /xr) eViAe 17177. 



40 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

The most important aspect of this dictum is that here, 
for the first time, is the step taken from the concrete to the 
abstract, from the anschaulich to the begrifflich. Anaxi- 
mander explained the sensuously given by the concept,, 
The advance consisted in the fact that the aireipov is dis- 
tinguished from all perceptible forms of matter. Anaxi- 
mander thus referred the world of experience to a reality 
beyond experience, the idea of which arises from a concep- 
tual postulate. He characterized this transcendent reality 
by all the predicates which his mind conceived as requisite 
for the cosmic matter. He called it aOdvarov ical dvooXe- 
Opov, ayivvTjTov teal acfrOaprov ; 1 he described it as including 
all things {irepiexeiv) and as determining their motion 
(icvftepvav) ; 2 and he designated it in this sense as to Oelov. 

But with this first metaphysical concept began then also 
the difficulty of giving a content to it. v^That Anaximander 
conceived the aireipov to be pre-eminently a spatial and 
temporal infinity, follows from the way in which he arrived 
at this principle. Concerning his attitude, however, toward 
the question of the qualitative determination of the 
aireipov, both antiquity and still more modern investiga- 
tors have apparently had divided opinions. The simplest 
and the most natural theory to .entertain is the following : 
that Anaximander did not express himself about the quality 
of this imperceivable cosmic matter, for the ancient ac- 
counts agree that he did not identify it with any one of the 
known elements. More questionable, certainly, is it 
whether he, as Herbart (W. W., I. 196) and his school 
(Stnimpell, I. 29) are inclined to accept, expressly denied 
the qualitative determination of the cosmic matter, which 
would have anticipated the Platonic-Aristotelian conception 

i Arist. Phys., III. 4, 203 b, 8. Likewise dtdiov and dyrjpco, see 
Hippol. Ref. hcer., I. 6 (Dox., 559). 

2 Which expression does not mean, as Roth thinks (Gesch. unserer 
abendl. Philos., II. 142), " a mental guidance." See Zeller, I 4 . 204, 1. 



THE MILESIAN NATURE PHILOSOPHY 41 

of matter as an undetermined possibility. But, on the 
other hand, it is certain that Anaximander thought o£ the 
aireipov always as corporeal, 1 and only the kind of cor- 
poreality can be subject to controversy. The hypothesis, 
too, expressed repeatedly in later antiquity, is untenable, 
viz., that he asserted the cosmic matter to be an inter- 
mediary state between water and air, or air and fire. On 
the contrary, the combination of the Anaximandrian prin- 
ciple with the tii<yiia of Empedocles and Anaxagoras 2 which 
Aristotle gives, led even in antiquity to the conception 
of the aireipov as a mixture of all the empirical material 
elements. If now, also, the adherence of Anaximander to 
hylozoistic monism is — as Aristotle says it is — so very 
certain that one cannot make him (with Bitter, op. cit.') 
the father of mechanical physics, in opposition to Ionian 
dynamics, 3 yet, on the other hand, it is incontrovertible that 
Anaximander in some conjecturable, obscure way must 
have stated that the aireipov contains in itself all known 
material elements, and then differentiates these elements 
in the cosmic process. 4 Doubtless he held an attitude of 
uncertainty as to the relationship of the aireipov to these 
particular elements, similar to the mythological primeval 
idea of Chaos, which idea, to be sure, had already been 
greatly purified, but not yet thoroughly elaborated and 
assimilated. 

Accordingly Anaximander was doubtless content in 
merely indicating as eKtcpiveaQai the development of par- 

1 Compare Zeller, I 4 . 186, 1, as against Michelis, Be an. injinito 
(Braunsberg, 1874). 

2 Arist. Met, XL 2, 1069 b, 22 : to which add especially PTiys., I. 4, 
187 a, 20 : ol 8 €K tov ivos ivovo-as ras iuavTLOTTjras eKKpive<r6ai, wanep 
Ava^lfxavdpos <prjai kt\. Compare § 22. 

3 Brundis, Handbuch, I. 125. 

4 Arist. Met., XI. 2, and Theophrastus (Simpl. Phys., 6) interpret 
this as a dvvdpei inclusion. The aneipov became to them their aopiaros 
v\tj. 



42 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

ticular things from the cosmic matter. Indeed he caused 
the antithetical Warm and Cold to be differentiated from 
the airetpov as its first qualitative determinations. Out of 
the mixture of these two qualities was supposed to be 
formed then the Fluid, v the fundamental material of the 
finite empirical world. "'Thus the metaphysical basis to the 
theory of Thales was complete ; for Anaximander taught 
that the particular parts of the world had been differentiated 
out of the Fluid. These were the earth, air, and the fire 
encircling the whole. 

The philosopher inserted into this meteorological account 
of the origin of the world a multitude of single astronom- 
ical ideas (§ 10) which, even if they appear childish to 
us to-day, nevertheless not only show a many-sided in- 
terest in nature, but also presuppose independent obser- 
vations and conclusions. Anaximander reflected upon the 
facts of organic life also, and there is preserved one obser- 
vation of his in accord 1 with the modern evolution theory. 
This is to the effect that animals appeared when the primi- 
tive liquid earth dried up, and were originally fish in form. 
Then some of them, adapting themselves to their new envi- 
ronment, became land animals. This process of develop- 
ment, in its naive explanation, includes even man. 

The single qualitative differentiations are lost again in 
the perpetual life-process of the cosmic matter, in the same 
way that they arise out of the aireipov. Anaximander, in the 
single fragment verbally preserved to us, has described this 
reabsorption in a poetic 2 manner — reminding us of original 
Oriental-religious ideas — as a kind of compensation for the 
injustice of individual existence. e'f &v Be ?) yevrjo-i? eari 
Toh overt, Kai rrjv cfrdopav et? ravra yiveaOai Kara to ^pecov. 
SlSovcu yap avra Sifcrjv feed tictiv [aXkrfkois] t% ahucias Kara 

1 Plut. Plac, V. 19 (Box., 430) ; Hippol. Ref. hcer., I. 6 {Vox., 560). 
Compare Teichmiiller, Studien, I. 63 f. 

2 Simpl. Phys., 6 r , 24, 13. 



THE MILESIAN NATURE PHILOSOPHY 43 

tt)v rod xp°v° v tcl^lv. ^To this Anaximander united the 
theory, also similarly Oriental, that the cosmic matter in 
perpetual transformation creates out of itself world-systems, 
and again absorbs them. 1 Whether to the view of an end- 
less plurality of successive world-formations was connected 
also that of a plurality of co-existing worlds, contained in 
the primitive matter, remains undecided and not probable. 2 

The determination of the dates of the life of Anaximander 
rests upon the arbitrary statement of Apollodorus, that in the 
second year of the fifty-eighth Olympiad he was sixty-four years 
old and directly afterwards died. (Diog. Laert., II. 2.) This is 
not far from the truth. Further of his biography is not known. 
His work, to which some one gave the title 7rept (jWews, was in 
prose, and appears to have been lost very early. Compare Schlei- 
ermacher, Ueber An., W. W. III. 2, 171 f. ; Busgen, Ueber das 
aTretpov des A. (Wiesbaden, 1867) ; Neuhauser, Anax. Milesius, 
(Bonn, 1883). 

16. We turn back from the metaphysical to the physical 
point of view when we pass from Anaximander to Anaxi- 
menes, for the latter sought the cosmic matter again in the 
empirically known. Nevertheless the reflections of Anaxi- 
mander were not ineffectual upon his successor. For when 
he substituted the air in place of the water of Thales, he 
had especial reference to the postulate of Anaximander: 
he explained that the air is the a-ireLpos apxv- He found the 
claims of the metaphysician to be thus satisfied by the em- 
pirical material. 3 At the same time he chose the air on 

i Plut. Strom,, fr. 2 (Dox., 579). 

2 SeeZeller, I. 212 f. 

3 This is attested expressly by Simplicius, Phys., 6*, 24, 26 : see Eus. 
Prcep., I. 8, 3 (Dox., 579) and especially Schol. in Arist., 514 a, 33 ; aneipov 
fiev ml avros vnedero rrjv apxf]v, ov prjv en aopiaTov ktX. It is thus impossible 
to premise with Ritter (Gesch. der PJiilos., 217) that Auaximenes made 
a distinction between the air as a metaphysical cosmic matter and the 
same as an empirical element. Brandis also, who first entertained this 
view in his handbook, I. 144, has later (Gesch. d. Entiv., I. 56, 2) not laid 
so much stress on it. 



44 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

account of its easy mutability : olofievos apfcelv to tov aepos 
evaWoLcoTov Trpos fjbeTajBoXrjv (Schol. in Arist., 514 a, 33). If 
we add to this, finally, the single statement which is pre- 
served of his writings : 1 olov r) ^jrv^r] 7) rjfieTepa arjp ov<ra 
o-vyfcparel ^/xa?, /cat oXov tov kog/jlov irvev/Jba /ecu arjp irepteyei, 2 
we know that his main object was to declare the cosmic 
matter to be the most alive and most continuously mobile 
of the known elements. We likewise meet here a very 
definite idea of the manner in which the apxn changes into 
other kinds of matter : 3 his theory of condensation and rare- 
faction {{juavwens or apalcocris — it vkv wens'). ^Out of the 
air through rarefaction originates fire : through condensa- 
tion, wind, clouds, rain, water, earth, stones, successively 
come. In this enumeration there appear considerable 
definiteness in meteorological observations, and at the 
same time the physicist's tendency to use the state of 
aggregation as a standard for the different changes in 
the cosmic matter. Milesian science already knew the 
connection of the state of aggregation with the tempera- 
ture ; and Anaximenes taught 4 vfehat rarefaction is identical 
with increase of warmth, condensation with increase of 
cold. 

From these general observations Anaximenes not only 
gave a great number of explanations of particular phe- 
nomena in which he showed himself to have been a many- 
sided and sharp-sighted physicist, but he also gave a theory 
of the origin of the world. To the latter was appended the 

i Plut. Plac, I. 3 (Box., 278). 

2 Far from favoring a purely spiritual interpretation of the world 
principle, by Anaximenes, as Roth (Gesch. d. dbendl. Philos., II. 250 f.) 
will have it, this passage shows the naive materialism of earliest science 
as it also appears in the casual remark of Anaximander that the soul is 
air. The materiality of the cosmic matter of Anaximenes is proved 
beyond a doubt by his theory of condensation and rarefaction. 

8 Hipp. Ref. h., I. 7 (Dox., 560). 

4 Plat. Depr.frig., 7, 3, 947. 



THE MILESIAN NATURE PHILOSOPHY 45 

safely attested Conception of a periodic change of world- 
formings and world-destructions, i. e., of a successive 
plurality of worlds. It is not certain, however, that he 
thought the destruction of the world to be conflagration. 

Nothing is kuown of the life of Anaximenes, and its chro- 
nological determination is difficult. See Zeller, I 4 . 219, 1. 
Against the conjectures of Diels (Rhein. Mus., XXXI. 27) 
there is the probable theory that by the " capture of Sardis," 
with which his death is said to be coincident (Diog., II. 3), we 
are to understand the capture by the Ionians in the year 499. 
Accordingly his birth would have to be in the 53d Olympiad, as 
Hermann has it (De philos. Jonic. cetatibus, G-ottingen, 1849). 
Roth (II. a, 246 f . ; b, 42 f .) makes the date too late by placing 
it in the 58th Olympiad. His -n-epl Screws was written 2 yA.wcro-77 
'Id&L a-n-Xfj /ecu aTrcptrrw. This is the beginning of a dry practical 
prose which shows itself contemporaneously in the historiog- 
raphy of his countryman Hecataeus. 

With the destruction of Miletus after the battle of Lade, 
494, and the fall of the independence of Ionia, the first 
development of Greek science along the lines of natural 
philosophy came to an end. 3 When, at least a generation * 
after Anaximenes, in another Ionian city, Ephesus, the 
great scientific theory of Heracleitus appeared, the new 
theory did not leave the old theory unused. Heracleitus, 
on the other hand, joined to the old theory the religious 
and metaphysical problems which had appeared in the 
mean time from other directions. - 

1 Simpl. Phys., 25 7 T 

2 According to Diog. Laert., II. 2. 

3 The great chronological chasm between Anaximenes and Heraclei- 
tus is consistent with the entirely different handling of the problems by 
the latter. Therefore the customary way of making Heracleitus a 
follower of the Milesians is the less tenable, since the teaching of 
Heracleitus absolutely presupposes that of Xenophanes. 

4 If one places the death of Anaximenes at 525 (Diels and Zeller) 
and that of Heracleitus, at the earliest, at 475, then the chasm appears 
still greater. 



46 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 



2. The Metaphysical Conflict — Heracleitus and the 

Eleatics. 

The advance from the speculations in nature-philosophy 
of the Milesians to the conceptual investigations in Being 
and Becoming of Heracleitus and his Eleatic opponents 
was the result of a reaction, which the conception of the 
world created by Ionian science necessarily exerted upon 
the religious ideas of the Greeks. The monistic tendency 
which science showed in seeking the unitary cosmic matter 
was in implicit opposition to polytheistic mythology, and 
necessarily became more and more accentuated. It was 
inevitable, therefore, that Greek science on the one hand 
should emphasize and reinforce the monistic suggestion 
which it found in the field of religious ideas, but on the 
other that it should fall so much the more into sharper 
opposition to the polytheism of the state religion. 

17. The imperturbable champion of this conflict, the 
man who stands as the religious-philosophical link between 
the Milesian nature philosophy and the two great metaphys- 
ical systems of Heracleitus and Parmenides, and at the 
same time the man who is the messenger of philosophy 
from the East to the West, is Xenophanes, 1 the rhapsodist 



1 The disposition of the material of the text, whereby Xenophanes, 
who is generally called the "founder" of the Eleatic school, has been 
separated from this school, is justified by these two facts : firstly, the 
theory of Xenophanes in point of time and subject matter precedes that 
of Heracleitus, and the theory of Heracleitus in the same respects pre- 
cedes that of Parmenides j secondly, that Xenophanes is neither a 
genuine Eleatic, nor yet a representative of the Eleatic theory of 
Being, enunciated first by Parmenides. The importance of Xenophanes 
lies not within a metaphysical but a religious-philosophical territory, 
and his strength does not consist in conceptual thought (Arist. Met., I. 
5, 986 b, 27, calls him, as opposed to Parmenides, aypoiKorepov) but in 
the powerful and grand thought of Oneness. See Brandis, Handbuch, 
I. 359. 



THE METAPHYSICAL CONFLICT 47 

of Colophon, who sang in Magna Graecia (570-470). To 
him antiquity referred as the first champion against the 
anthropomorphic element in the popular religion. He 
criticised the representation of gods in human form, 1 and 
made sport of the poets who attributed to celestials the 
passions and sins of men. 2 He asserted the singleness of 
the highest and true God. 3 If we may believe that herein 
he taught nothing but what was already provided for and 
hinted at, if not indeed definitely presented, in the Pythag- 
orean doctrine as known to him, and possibly even earlier 
in the Mysteries, — \then that which makes Xenophanes a 
philosopher is the basis which he developed for monothe- 
ism from the philosophy of the Milesian physics.] We can 
condense his teaching into a sentence : the ap^fj is the 
Godhead. According to his religious conviction, God is 
the original ground of all things, and to him are due all 
attributes which the physicists had ascribed to the cosmic 
matter. He is unoriginated and imperishable ; 4 and, as 
the cosmic matter was identical with the World- All for the 
Ionians, so for Xenophanes was God identical to the world- 
all. He contains all things in himself, and he is at the 
same time ev teal irav. b This philosophical monotheism, 

1 Compare the well-known verse in Clem. Alex. Strom., V. 714 
(fr. 5, 6). 

2 Compare Sext. Emp. Adv. math., IX. 193 and I. 289. 

3 " Els 0e6s ev re Oeolcri kol avBpuiroicn fieyicrros ovre ftepas OvrjToiaiv 
ofiouos ovre vorjfia." The metaphysical monotheism in Xenophanes and 
later in the Greek thinkers — in a certain sense even in Plato — is 
allied with the recognition also of subordinate deities which are treated 
as parts of the world. The Stoa was the first to attempt to analyze 
this relationship in a conceptual way. Side by side with the 
metaphysical monotheism, there thus continued to exist a mythical 
polytheism. 

4 According to Arist. Ehet., II. 23, 1399 b, 6, Xenophanes declared 
it impious to speak of birth and death, of origination and extinction, 
of a Godhead, dpCporepcos yap <rvpj3aiveiv prj etvat tovs deovs nore. 

5 Compare Simpl. Phys., 6 r , 22, 26 ; ev to ovkcu nav . . . Sevocpdvrjv . . . 

VTTOTlOeoBcU. 



48 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

so energetically defended against the polytheism of the 
myth, is consequently not theistic but entirely pantheistic, 
as we use the terms. World and God to Xenophanes are 
identical, and all the single things of perception lose them- 
selves in that one, unchanging, universal essence. 1 fin con- 
sequence of his religious predilection, however, Xenophanes 
emphasized the singleness of the divine cosmic principle 
more decidedly than the Milesians, to whom this is a self- 
evident principle^ owing to their concept of the apxn> It 
remains indeed doubtful whether the entire Zeno-like argu- 
ment for this, founded on the superlatives " mightiest " 
and " best," can be ascribed to him. 2 To the quality of 
singleness, however, Xenophanes further ascribed to the 
cosmic deity that of unity 3 in the sense of qualitative 
unity and inner homogeneity. Nevertheless, of what this 
consists he had as little to say as Anaximander con- 
cerning the qualitative constitution of the anreipov. In his 
poetry he attributed to the Godhead in an incidental way 
all possible functions and powers, spiritual 4 as well as 
material. 5 Yet out of the mass of his utterances Aristotle 
could obtain 6 only an indefinite and obscure assertion of 
the essential homogeneity of all being. [It was of greater 
importance, however, for future philosophical development 
that Xenophanes followed to its logical conclusion the con- 
cept of qualitative unity ; and that moreover he extended 

1 According to Sext. Emp. Pyrr. hypot., I. 33, the sinograph 
Timon makes him say ; omrrj yap ipbv vbov evpvaaipi Els ev tovto re Udv 
avekvero ' irav 8' ebv alel Tlavrr) dveXicoLievov fiiav els (pv^M earaB' oyioiav. 

2 Be Xen. Zen. Gorgias, 977 a, 23 ; Simpl. Phys., 1. c. 

3 In which the ambiguity of the ev played a great rdle. 

4 Sext. Emp. Adv. math., IX. 144 : ovkos 6pa 3 ovXos Se voel, ovkos be r 
aKovei. Simpl. Phys., 6 r , 23, 18 : aXk* andvevBe ttovolo voov <ppev\ Travra 
Kpadalvei. 

5 Thus the often mentioned ball-shape of the Godhead or of the 
World. Compare Hippol. Ref. h., I. 14 (Dox., 565). 

6 Met., I. 5, 986 b, 22. Compare Plat. Soph., 242 d. 



THE METAPHYSICAL CONFLICT 49 

it over temporal differentiations in such a way that he 
ascribed unchangeability to the Godhead in every respect. 1 
He thereby enters into significant opposition to his prede- 
cessors. 2 From the concept of the divine a/>%r/, there van- 
ished the character of mutability which had played so 
great a role in the Milesian hylozoism. 

In the emphasis upon this claim that the apxn is un- 
originated and imperishable, and must also be immobile, 
excluding therefore kIvt)<ji<s as well as oWolcoctls, lay the 
distinctive innovation of the teaching of Xenophanes. 
For just here the concept of the apxv could no longer 
serve as an explanation of empirical events. However, 
Xenophanes did not himself appear to have been conscious 
of the chasm he left between his metaphysical principle, 
jind the plurality and changeableness of individual things. 3 
For in an obviously naive 4 manner he conjoined to his 
religious metaphysics a multitude of physical theories. 
Nevertheless he does not appear as an independent in- 
vestigator in physics, but he simply follows the views of 
Anaximander, with whose entire doctrine he seems to 
have been perfectly familiar, 5 and adds certain more or 
less happy observations of his own. | Among the latter 

1 Eus. Prcep. ev.,l. 8, 4 : elvai \eyet to ttclv ail opoiov. Hippolyt. Re/., 
I. 14 : ore ev to ttclv eaTiv e£<o /xera/3oX^s. He also denied movement 
to the world-all ; compare Sim pi. Phys , Q r , 23, 6 : alei §' iv tovtS re ixivetv 
Kivovfievov ovbev ovBe fieTepx^crdai \xw e7U7rpe7ret aXkodev ciWr). 

2 This very opposition Aristotle emphasizes in connection with 
Met., I. 5. 

3 It is possible, also, that he endeavored to avoid a difficulty here by an 
indefinite expression, just as Diogenes, II. 1, reports that Anaximander 
(no source of authority given) taught : to. jxzv jiepr) fj.eTaj3dXk€iv. to 8e 
nav d[i(Td^KT]Tov eivai. 

4 Thus he lets stand the plurality of mythical gods under the meta- 
physical Godhead. 

5 Theophrastus appears to think him the pupil of Anaximander See 
Zeller, I 4 . 508, 1. 



50 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

belong the very childish ideas about astronomical objects. 
For instance, the stars were to him clouds of fire, which 
were quenched when they set and were enkindled when they 
rose ; x he attached great significance 2 to the earth as the 
fundamental element of the empirical world (with the 
addition of the water), and he thought it to be endless 3 in 
its downward direction. His statement was more happy 
about the petrifactions he had observed in Sicily, as a proof 
of the original drying of the earth from its muddy condi- 
tion. 4 Yet Xenophanes apparently held such physical 
theories concerning the individual and temporary in small 
esteem compared to his religious metaphysics, which he 
championed vehemently. To this only can his sceptical 
remarks in one of his fragments 5 refer. 

The differing statements as to when Xenophanes lived can 
be reconciled most easily by assuming that the time when he, 
according'to his own statement (Diog. Laert., IX. 19), at twenty- 
five began his wanderings, coincided with the invasion by the Per- 
sians under Harpagus (546, in consequence of which so many 
Ionians left their homes). He himself testifies (loc. cit.) that 
his wanderings lasted sixty-seven years, at which time he must 
have attained the age of at least ninety-two. Impoverished 
during the emigration, if not already poor, which is less prob- 
able, he supported himself as a rhapsodist by the public render- 
ing of his own verses. In old age he settled in Elea, the 
founding of which in 537 by the fugitive Phoenicians he cele- 
brated in two thousand distichs. According to the preserved 
fragments, his poetic activity was essentially of the Gnomic 
order (§9). He embodied his teaching in a didactic poem in 
hexameter, of which only a few fragments remain. These 
have been collated by Mullach ; also by Karsten, Philosophorum 
Grcecorum operum reliquiae, I. 1 (Amsterdam, 1835) ; Reinhold, 
De genuina Xe7iophanis doctrina (Jena, 1847), and in the dif- 
ferent works about Xenophanes by Franz Kern (Programm, 

1 Stob. Eel, I. 522 (Dox., 348). 
, 2 Achilles Tatius in Isagoge ad Aratum, 128. 

3 Simpl. Phys. 41 4 , 189, 1. Sext. Emp. Adv. math., IX. 361. 

4 Hippol. Ref., I. 14 (Dox. 565). 

6 Sextus Emp., VII. 49, 110 ; VIII. 326. Stob. Eel., I. 224. 



THE METAPHYSICAL CONFLICT 51 

Naumburg, 1864; Oldenburg, 1876; Danzig, 1871; Stettin, 
1874, 1877) ; Freudenthal, Die Theologie des Xenophanes (Bres- 
lau, 1886). Compare Arch. f. Gesch. d. Philos., I. 322 f. 

The pseudo- Aristotelian treatise De Xenophane Zenone Gor- 
gia (printed in the works of Aristotle, and in Mullach, Fragm. 
I. 271, also under the title De Melisso, Xenophane el Gorgia), 
came from the Peripatetic school. According to the investiga- 
tions of Brandis, Bergk, Ueberweg, Vermehren, and Zeller, we 
may believe that the last part of this work doubtless treats of 
Gorgias, and the first part almost as surely of Melissus. The 
middle portion presupposes an older presentation about Xenoph- 
anes which was referred wrongly by a later commentator to 
Zeno, and was supplemented with some statements about Zeno's 
views drawn from other sources. This part of the treatise can 
be used only with the greatest judgment, and then as illustra- 
tive of what on the one hand the fragments, and on the other 
the reports, of Aristotle give. 

The teaching of Xenophanes, immature as it appears, 
nevertheless discloses the inadequacy of the Milesian con- 
cept of the apxrj. In or behind the change of single things, 
he said, should be sought a cosmic principle that creates 
them all, but yet itself always remains unchanged. But 
if we seriously conceive of this cosmic principle of 
Xenophanes as utterly unchangeable, and at the same 
time regard it as the sole and all-embracing actuality, it is 
impossible to understand its capacity of being ceaselessly 
transmuted into individual tilings. The two thought-mo- 
tifs that had been fundamental in the concept of the apxv 
now part company, — on the one hand, the reflection upon 
the fundamental fact of the cosmic process (Geschehens), 
on the other the fundamental postulate of the permanent, 
of the unchangeably self-determined, of Being. The more 
difficult their reconciliation appeared, the more conceivable 
is it that the young science, at whose command there was 
as yet no wealth of mediating data, and which on the other 
hand was developed with naive unconcern, should fall upon 
the expedient of thinking out each motif by itself without 
regard for the other. From this courageous onesidedness, 



52 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

undaunted as it was at paradoxical consequences, origi- 
nated the two great metaphysical systems whose opposition 
determined later thought. These are the theories of Hera- 
cleitus and Parmenides. 

18. The doctrine of absolute, ceaseless, and universal 
mutability already was even in antiquity regarded as the 
kernel of Heracleitanism. Its watchword is -rravra pel ; and 
when Plato 1 gave the phrase a new turn, ore irdvra %wpel 
/cal ov&ev /jbevei, he gave at the same time the obverse of 
the proposition, viz., the denial of the permanent. Here in 
this is Heracleitus, " the Dark," essentially distinguished 
from the Milesian philosophers, with whom he, under the 
name of the " Ionian natural philosophers," is generally 
classed (§ 16). Heracleitus found nothing permanent in 
the perceptual world, and he gave up search for it. In 
the most varied phrase he presented the fundamental 
truth of the continuous transmutation of all things into 
one another. From every realm of life he seized ex- 
amples, in order to point out the passage of opposites into 
each other. He described in bold figures the ceaselessness 
of change, which was to him the essence of the world, and 
needed no derivation and explanation. There are no truly 
existing things, but all things only become &ndj)ass away 
again in the play of perpetual world-movement. The dp^r) is 
not so much immutable matter in independent motion, as 
the Milesians had said, but is the motion itself, from which 
all forms of matter are later derived as products^ This 
thought is stated by Heracleitus by no means with con- 
ceptual clearness, but in sensuous pictures. Already the 
Milesian investigators had noted that all motion and 
change are connected with temperature changes (§16), and 
so Heracleitus thought that the eternal cosmic motion ex- 
pressed itself by fire. Fire is the dp^r}, but not as a stuff 
identical with itself in all its changes, but rather as the 

1 CratyL, 402 a. 



THE METAPHYSICAL CONFLICT 53 

ever-uniform process itself, in which all things rise and 
pass away. It is the world itself, therefore, in its unorigi- 
nating and unperishing mutability. 1 

The exceptional difficulty of this relationship was remarked 
by the ancients, and from it, especially, the Ephesiau got his 
nickname, o-kot<llv6<;. Herein appeared the amalgamation of 
the abstract and the concrete, of the sensuous and the symboli- 
cal, which, in general, characterized the entire thought and 
habit of expression of Heracleitus. Neither to oracular pride 
nor to the assumption of mysteriousness (Zeller, I 4 . 570 f.) is 
this deficiency to be attributed in his writing, but to inability 
to find an adequate form for his aspiring abstract thought. 
Besides this, a priestly ceremoniousness of tone is unmistak- 
able. Hence the wrestling with language which appears in 
nearly all the fragments ; hence the rhetorical vehemence of 
expression and a heaping up of metaphors, in which a power- 
ful and sometimes grotesque fancy is displayed. Concerning 
especially his fundamental teaching, his words seem to show in 
isolated passages that he had only substituted fire for water or 
air. But more exact search shows that the dp^rj meant quite a 
different thing to him. He also identified fire and the world-all 
and fire and the Godhead ; — nay, hylozoic pantheism finds in 
the teaching of Heracleitus its own most perfect expression. 
Yet he meant that this world principle is only the movement 
represented in the fire. It is the cosmic process itself. 

Heracleitus proceeded from the point of view that the 
fire-motion is originally in itself the final ground of things, 
and accordingly no permanent Being is fundamental in it. 
He found fire to be the condition of every change, and 
therefore the object of scientific knowledge. \But he did 
not only mean this in the sense that " nothing is perma- 
nent save change," but also in the higher sense that this 
eternal movement completes itself in determined and ever- 
recurrent forms. From this metaphysical thesis he at- 
tempted to understand the problem of the ever-permanent 
series of repetitions, the rhythm of movement and the law 

1 Fr. 46 (Schust.) Kocrpov r'ov avrbv dndvTcov ovre tcs Secov ovre dv6pa>- 
voiv 67roir)V€Vy dXX' r\v del kcu €<ttiv irvp dei£coop. 



54 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

of change.; In obscure and undeveloped form originated 
here the conception of natural law. It appeared in the 
vesture of the mythical Elpap fievw, as an all-determining 
Fate, or an all-powerful AUt), menacing every deviation 
with punishment. Since it is to be regarded as the peculiar 
object of reason, he called it the Aoyos, — the reason that 
rules the world. 

In the later presentations of this theory, in which its Stoicism 
appears, it is difficult to get at what is in itself peculiarly 
Heracleitan (Zeller, I 4 . 606 f.). But the fundamental thought 
of a world-order of natural phenomena cannot be denied to 
Heracleitus. Compare M. Heinze, Die Lehre vom Logos in der 
griechischen Pliilosophie (Leipzig, 1872). 

The most universal form of the cosmic process was, there- 
fore, for Heracleitus that of opposition and its elimination. 
From the notion of the " flow of all things," it followed 
that every single thing in its continuous change unites 
in itself perpetually opposing determinations. Everything 
is only a transition, a point of limit between the vanishing 
and the about-to-be. iThe life of nature is a continuous pass- 
ing into one another of all opposites, and out of their strife 
come the individual things]: 7roA,e/zo? iravrwv }iev iraryp io-ri, 
nrdvrwv Be ftaaiXevs. 1 But as these antitheses ultimately 
arise only out of the universal and all-embracing, living, fiery, 
cosmic force, so they find their adjustment and reconciliation 
in this same fire. [Fire is, in this respect, the " unseen har- 
mony.! 2 The world-all is consequently the self -divided 3 
and the self-reuniting unity. 4 It is at one and the same 

1 Fr. 75. 

2 Compare Fr. 8 : appLovir] yap dtyavrjs (paveprjs KpeiTT<av. iv fircis 8ia(popas 
ml €Tep6rr}Tas 6 fXLyvvoiv 6eos eKpv^re koi Karebvcrev. Comp. Zeller, I 4 . 
604 f. The dcpaprjs here obviously characterizes the metaphysical in 
opposition to the physical. 

3 Plato, Symp., 187 a : to ev diacpepofxevov avro avra. Compare Soph., 
242 c j also Fr. 98. 

4 Heracleitus sought to picture this relationship in the obviously unfor- 



THE METAPHYSICAL CONFLICT 55 

time strife and peace ; or what seems to mean J the same 
in Heracleitus' terminology, it is at one and the same time 
want and fulness. 2 

The physical application of these principles afforded 
a thoroughgoing theory of the elemental changes in the 
universe. Action and reaction take place in orderly suc- 
cession, and indeed in such wise that they are constantly 
balanced in their results. Thus it happens that single 
things have the appearance of persisting, when two oppos- 
ing forces temporarily hold each other in equilibrium, 
as, for instance, the river appears as a permanent thing 
because just as much water flows to a point as flows from 
it. Heracleitus designated this rhythm of change as the 
two " Ways " which are identical, the 686$ /cdray and the 
68b<? avoy. z By the first Way the original fire changes 
itself into water and then into earth through condensation ; 
by the second the earth changes back through liquefac- 
tion to water and then to fire. This double process is 
true in one respect for the entire world ; for in regularly 
recurrent periods 4 it develops into individual things from 
the original fire, and then returns to the initial condition 
of pure fire. Hence comes the idea of alternating world- 
formation and world-destruction. 5 On the other hand, this 

tunate figure of the bow and the lyre : irrik'ivTovos [-rponos] yap appovirj 
Koapov oK(o(nrep t6£ov ml Xvprjs. As to the meaning, see Zeller, I 4 . 598 £. 

1 Ibid., 641. 

2 Fr. 67. From these determinations apparently come vcIkos and 
(piKorrjs, the different conditions developed by Empedocles (§ 21). 

3 Compare Diog. Laert., IX. 8. The designations kotoh and ava> are to 
be understood as first of all spatial, but they appear to have acquired a 
connotation of value. A thing becomes less valuable, the farther it is 
from the fiery element. 

4 He has suggested for these the Great Year (18,000 or 10,800 years ?) ; 
following perhaps the Chaldeans. 

5 The acceptance of successive world-formations and destructions 
in Heracleitus may be looked upon as assured from the deductions of 
Zeller, I 4 . 626-640. 



56 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

orderly change of matter verifies itself in every single 
series in nature. How far Heracleitus, however, applied 
his view to particular physical objects, we do not know. 
In cosmogony, he appears to have been satisfied with bring- 
ing the " sea" out of the primitive fire, and then out of the 
sea the earth on the one hand, and on the other the warm 
air. The only detail authoritatively attested — one that re- 
minds us of Xenophanes — that the sun is a mass of vapor, 
taking fire in the morning and becoming extinguished 
in the evening, reconciles us to the loss of other theories 
of Heracleitus, in case he had any. For Heracleitus was 
less a physicist than a metaphysician. He thought out 
a single fundamental principle with profound reflection 
and vivid imagination. His interest lay in the most 
general of principles and in anthropological questions. 

It can scarcely be accidental that in the preserved fragments 
of Heracleitus there is little peculiarly physical, but much that 
is metaphysical and anthropological. If his writing actually 
had three \6yoi (Diog. Laert., IX. 5), of which one dealt with 
-rrepl rov 7ravTos, and both the others were ttoXltlko's and OeoXoytKos, 
this is proof that we have to do with a philosopher who did 
not, as his Milesian predecessors, accord a merely casual 
consideration to human life, but made it his prime study. 

The conflict of the pure fire and the lower elements into 
which everything changes repeats itself in man. The soul 
as the living principle is fire, and finds itself a captive in 
a body made out of water and earth, which, on account of 
its inherent rigidness, is to the soul an abhorrent object. 
; With this theory Heracleitus united ideas of transmigra- 
tion, of retribution after death, and the like ; and he, as 
Pythagoras, seems to have attached it to certain Mysteries. 
In general he took a position in religious matters similar 
to that of Pythagoras. Without breaking entirely with 
the popular faith, he espoused an interpretation of the 
myths that inclined toward monotheism and had an 
ethical import] 



THE METAPHYSICAL CONFLICT 57 

The vitality of the soul, and consequently its perfection 
in every respect, depends on its deriving its nourishment 
from the cosmic fire, the universal reason, the \6yos. The 
breath is the physical medium of obtaining this nourish- 
ment, and cessation of the breath stops activity. A further 
medium of life, however, is sense perception, which is the 
absorption of the outer through the inner fire ; and this 
accounts for the depression of soul-activity in sleep. The 
drier and more fiery, the better and wiser is the soul, and 
the more does it participate in the universal cosmic reason. 
Since the cosmic reason is cosmic law, the reasonableness 
of man consists in his conformity to law, and in his con- 
scious subordination to it. On that account Heracleitus 
regarded the ethical and political tasks of mankind as 
expressions of the supremacy of law. His entire aristo- 
cratic hate against the democracy, that had attained to 
power, is revealed in diatribes against the anarchy of the 
multitudes and their caprice. Only in subordination to 
order and in the last instance to cosmic law, can man 
win that serenity which constitutes his happiness. In an 
apprehension of law, however, and in subordination to 
the universally valid, Heracleitus found the theoretical goal 
of mankind. Only the reason and not sense perception 
guarantees the attainment of this goal, and without the 
reason eyes and ears are bad witnesses. 1 The great mass 

i The well-known Fragment 11 (Sext. Emp. Adv. math., VII. 126), 
kclkui ixdprvpes dvOpwTTOiaiv ocpdaXfiol kcu dara frapfiapovs ^t^as ex° VTa>v > 
is usually interpreted as a disdain of sense knowledge. Schuster 
(p. 19 f.) has made an attempt (confuted by Zeller, Ik 572 f., 656 f.) to 
stamp Heracleitus as a sensualist on account of his theory of perception. 
The correct position lies in the mean between these two authorities. Right 
knowledge indeed arises in sense when the right soul elaborates it. 
The criterion to which all things are referred is here again conformity 
to law, which is universally valid and won only through thought. In 
sleep and through mere individual perception every one has only his own, 
and therefore a false, world of ideas. The analogy in practical life is 



58 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

of mankind in this respect are badly off. They do not 
reflect, but live on as the deluded victims of sense, whose 
greatest deception consists in its simulation of permanent 
Being amid the transitoriness of all the phenomena of 
perception. 

Heracleitus of Ephesus, son of Blyson, belonged to the most 
eminent family of his native city, which traced its origin to 
Codrus. In this family the dignity of apx^v fiao-iXevs was in- 
herited, and Heracleitus is said to have surrendered it to his 
brother. The dates of his birth and death are not exactly 
known. If he survived the banishment of his friend Hermodo- 
rus (compare E. Zeller, Be Herm. Ephesio, Marburg, 1851), who 
was forced from the city by the democratic ascendency after 
the throwing off of Persian domination, his death can scarcely 
have been before 470. About this time he himself went into 
retirement to devote himself to science. His birth, since he is 
said to have lived about sixty years, can be placed between 
540-530. With these dates, moreover, the statements of 
Diogenes Laertius agree, for Diogenes places the uk^t} of 
Heracleitus in the sixty-ninth Olympiad. His own writing, 
in poetically ceremonial prose, supposes that Pythagoras and 
Xenophanes are already familiar names. It was not probably 
written until the third decade of the fifth century. His rude 
partisanship upon the side of the oppressed aristocracy is all 
that is known of his life, by which is explained his contempt 
for mankind, his solitariness and bitterness, and his ever 
emphatic antagonism toward the public and its capricious 
sentiments. 

In the collection and attempt at a systematic ordering of the 
unfortunately meagre fragments of Heracleitus' book, and in 
the presentation of his doctrine, the following men have done 
eminent service : Fr. Schleiermacher (Her. der Bunkle von 
Ephesus, Ges. Werke III., II. 1-146) ; Jak. Bernays ( Ges. 
Abli. herausgez. von Usener, I., 1885, 1-108, and in addition 
especially the "Letters of Heracleitus," Berlin, 1869); Ferd. 
Lassalle (Die Philos. Her. des Dunikeln von Ephesus, 2 vols. , 
Berlin, 1858); P. Schuster (Her." v. Ephesus, Leipzig, 1873, 
in the Acta soe. phil, Lips, ed., Ritschl, III. 1-394) ; Teich- 
muller (Neue Studien zu Gesch. der Begriffe, Parts 1 and 2) ; 

shown in Fragment 123, $-vvbv Icrri naai to (ppovclv, ^vv voco Xeyovras 
Icrxopi^o-Oai xph r< p £ vv <? Tvavroav, &anep vopw ttoXis kiu ttoXv laxvporepcos ■ 
Tpecpovrm yap tvovtcs oi dudpamivoi vopoi vno evos rod Beiov. 



THE METAPHYSICAL CONFLICT 59 

J. Bywater (Her. reliquice, Oxford), 1877, a collection which 
includes, to be sure, the counterfeited letters, but those, how- 
ever, that presumably came from ancient sources ; Th. Gom- 
perz (Zu II.'s Lehre unci den Ueberresten seines WerTce, Vienna, 
1887) ; Edm. Pfleiderer, Die Pliilos. cler Her. v. Eph. im Lichte 
der Mysterienideen (Berlin, 1886). 

In the theory of Heracleitus, scientific reflection as the 
sole true method already so far strengthened itself in the 
abstract development of his concepts that it set itself over 
against customary opinion and sense appearance with 
a rugged self-consciousness. To a still higher degree the 
same attitude appears in the antagonistic theory of the 
Eleatic School 

19. The scientific founder of the Eleatic school was 
Parmenides. HVhat had been set forth by Xenophanes in 
religious assertions about the unity and singleness of the 
Godhead and its identity with the world, was developed 
entirely conceptually by Parmenides as a metaphysical 
theory. That concept, however, which was placed as central 
and drew all the others entirely into its circle, was Being. 
The great Eleatic was led up to his theory through reflec- 
tions of a purely formal logical nature. In a still obscure 
and undeveloped form the correlation of consciousness and 
Being hovered before his mind. All thinking is referred 
to something thought, and therefore has Being for its con- 
tent. ^Thinking that refers to Nothing and is therefore 
contentless, cannot be. Therefore not-Being cannot be 
thought, and much the less can it be. 1 It is the greatest of 
all follies to discuss not-Being at all, for we must speak of 
it as a thought content, that is, as something being, and 
must contradict ourselves. 2 If all thinking refers, however, 

1 Verses 35-40 (Mullach) : ovre yap av yvoirjs to ye fxr) iov ■ ov yap 
avvarov. ovre (ppdarais, to yap avTo voelv eariu re koi elvai. 

2 vv. 43-51. Steinhart and Bernays have rightly called attention to 
the fact that Heracleitus is antagonized here, for he ascribes Being and 
not-Being alike to the things conceived in the process of Becoming. 



60 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

to something being, then is Being everywhere the same. 
For whatsoever also may be thought as in the particular 
thing, nevertheless the quality of Being (das Sein) is in all 
the same. Being is the last product of an abstraction that 
has compared the particular thought contents. Being 
alone remains when all difference has been abstracted from 
the content determinations of actuality. 1 From this fol- 
lows the fundamental doctrine of the Eleatics, that only 
the one abstract Being is^ 

The philosophy of Parmenides would be complete in this 
brief sentence ecrnv elvai, if on the one hand there did 
not follow from this conceptual definition a number of 
predicates of Being, — predicates primarily negative and 
susceptible only disjunctively of positive formulation ; and 
if on the other hand the philosopher did not deviate from 
the strict logic of his own postulates. 

In respect to the first, all time and qualitative distinc- 
tions must be denied to Being, feeing is unoriginated and 
imperishable. It was not and will not be, but only is in 
timeless eternity. 2 For time, wherein perhaps any thing 
that is, first was and suffered change, 3 is in no wise different 
from a thing that is. Being is also unchangeable, entirely 
homogeneous and unitary in quality. It is also not plural, 
but is the one unique, indivisible, 4 absolute cosmic Being. 

Compare Zeller, I 4 . 670. The same dialectic in reference to Being 
and not-Being is repeated in the dialogue, The Sophist (238), in seeking 
for the possibility" of error. 

1 This line of thought is repeated by the Neo-Platonists, by Spinoza 
et al., and is unavoidable if Being is valid as the criterion of " things 
being." Compare Kant, Kr. d. v. Vern., Kehrb., 471 f. 

2 v. 59 ff., especially 61 : ovd'c ttot rjv ou8' earai eVei vvv ia-riv 6fxov ttclv 

3 v. 96 : ovde xpovos eariv fj ecrrai aXXo napeK rov iovros. This is di- 
rected perhaps against the cosmogonies, perhaps against the chrono- 
logical measure of cosmic development in Heracleitus. 

° 4 v. 78. 



THE METAPHYSICAL CONFLICT 61 

All plurality, all qualitative difference, all origination, all 
change or destruction are shut out by true Being. In this 
respect Parmenides has constructed the concept in perfect 
clearness and sharpness^ 

But this abstract ontology among the Eleatics nevertheless 
took another turn through some content definitions obtained 
from the inner and outer world of experience. This oc- 
curred in the two directions resulting from the way in 
which Parmenides gained the concept of Being from the 
identity of thinking and the thing thought. That Being, 
to which thought refers in its naive conception as if it 
were its own necessary content, is corporeal actuality. 
Therefore the Being of Parmenides was identified with the 
absolutely corporeal. The polemic against the acceptance 
of not-Being got a new aspect in this way. The 6v coin- 
cides with the ifkeov, the fir) ov with the icevov ; and the 
Eleatics taught that there is no empty space. There- 
fore Being is indivisible, immovable, 1 and excludes not 
only qualitative change, but also all change of place. 
This absolute corporeality is therefore not boundless 
(aTeXevTrjTov), but is Being 2 that is complete in itself, 
unchangeably determined, self-bounded, like a perfectly 
rounded, changeless and homogeneous sphereJu 

1 vv. 80, 85; tcovtov t' iv tcovtco re pkvov kol& icovro re Kelrai. 

2 v. 88 f. I Doubtless Parmenides antagonized the Milesian teaching 
of the aireipov in all its possible affiliations. But it is utterly unnecessary 
to think that the opposition of nepas and anetpov presupposes the num- 
ber investigations of the Pythagoreans. There is not the slightest 
trace of this in Parmenides. Inversely it is not impossible that the 
opposition of the Eleatics against all predecessors made the dual con- 
cept so important that the Pythagoreans inserted this among their 
fundamental antitheses. Doubtless the purely Greek representation 
influenced Parmenides, in which the measurable and self-determined 
and never the measureless and undetermined was regarded as perfect. 
Melissus seems (§ 20) to have neglected this point, and thus to have 
approached the theory of Anaximandei\\ 

8 v. 102 f. 



62 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

On the other hand, however, there was again for Par- 
menides no Being which was not either consciousness or 
something thought : rcovrbv $' iarl voeiv re teal ovveicev iaro 
uorj/na (v. 94). As for Xenophanes, so also for Parmenides, 
corporeality and thought perfectly coincide in this cosmic 
god, this abstract Being : to yap irXeov icrrl vorj/jua (v. 149). 

We can designate, therefore, the Eleatic system neither as 
materialistic nor idealistic, because these terms have mean- 
ing only when corporeality and thought have been previously 
considered as different fundamental forms of actuality. The 
Eleatic theory is rather an ontology which in regard to its con- 
tent so completely took its stand at the naive point of view of 
the identification of corporeality and thought, as really to exalt 
it to the dignity of a principle. 

More prominently in the teaching of Parmenides than in 
that of Xenophanes does the peculiar result appear : that the 
principle, gained by conceptual reflection out of the need 
of knowing the real world, proves itself entirely unsuitable 
for the purpose. This Eleatic concept of Being could 
explain so little of the empirical world that Parmenides 
had to deny the existence of that world. All plurality and 
diversity, all coming into existence, existing and passing out 
of existence, are only illusory appearance, — false names that 
mortals have given to true Being. 1 The Eleatic found the 
origin of this appearance in sense-perception, of whose illu- 
sory 2 character he gave warning. He did not seem, however, 
to realize the circle involved in his reasoning. Although 
from an entirely opposite principle, he explained in a 
sharper epigrammatic way than Heracleitus, how the truth 
can be sought only in conceptual thought but never in the 

1 v. 98 f. The conjecture ovap instead of ovofi (v. 98, Gladisch) is 
invalidated by, among other things, the circumstance that Sophistry and 
Eristic, which were developed from Eleaticism, frequently spoke of the 
plurality of names for the one thing that is (§ 28). 

2 v. 54 f. 



THE METAPHYSICAL CONFLICT 63 

senses. His ontology is a perfectly conscious rationalism 
that shut out all experience and denied all content. 

Nevertheless Parmenides believed that he could not do 
without a physical theory, possibly because he felt the de- 
mands of his scientific society in Elea. So the second 
part * of his didactic poem gave a kind of hypothetical and 
problematical physics which stands out of logical connec- 
tion with the ontology of the first part. But on the other 
hand the " Human Opinions " about the many changeable 
things offered to sensation were not simply reproduced, 
but were transformed, as they would necessarily have to be, 
according to his presupposition, if in general plurality 
motion and change were to be recognized as real. To this 
belonged first of all the statement that that which is not, is 
thought 2 as actual side by side that which is ; and that out 
of the reciprocal action of the two are derived multiplicity 
and the process of individual Becoming. YThe physical 
theory of Parmenides was a dualism, a theory of opposites. 
Although in this respect it reminds us strongly of 
Heracleitus, the agreement with him is still more apparent 
in the making whatever really is as the equivalent of the 
light, and whatever really is not as the equivalent of the 
darkness. 3 When therefore this pair of opposites was 
identified with the thin and thick, the light and the heavy, 
the fire and the earth, the reference was to Anaximander. 
Yet, on the other hand, there was full recognition of the 
Heracleitan teaching, which had set fire over against all 
the other elements as the forming and determining ele- 
mentj If Parmenides did not herein also point out the 
relation between these two opposites as that of an active 

1 v. 18-30; 33-7; 110 f. 

2 On this point later Atomism, which was more logical than even 
Parmenides himself in physics, regarded not-Being, i. e., empty space, 
as actual. 

8 v. 122 f. 



64 HISTOKY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

and a passive principle, nevertheless Aristotle was justified 
(Met, I. 3, 984 b, 1), inasmuch as for Parmenides the fire, 
which possesses Being, certainly had the value of an ani- 
mating, moving principle over against the darkness as a 
thing not possessing it. 

Of the particular theories of Parmenides which have been 
handed down in a very fragmentary condition, there is not 
much to remark. With him also the principal stress was 
laid upon metaphysics. The little information that exists 
proves that he tried with considerable art to develop the 
dualism which he derived from his general ontology, and 
that he even descended to details which he made it his duty 1 
to explain in all their bearings. In some particulars he 
subjoined existing theories to his own without making any 
actual advance in physics. {His astronomical ideas agree 
so thoroughly with those of the Pythagoreans, with whom 
he doubtless came in contact, that one must admit the 
dependence of the Eleatics upon the Pythagoreans in 
astronomy. 2 As to the origin of man, he held the same 
view that Anaximander held before him and that Empe- 
docles held after him. S Otherwise, excepting some remarks 
about procreation, etc., only his theory of sensation has 
come down to us. In this he taught, like Heracleitus, that 
of the two fundamental elements contained in man, each is 
susceptible to that which is related to it in the external 
world. The Warm in a living man senses the fiery connec- 
tion-in-things (Lebenszusammenhang*), but even also in 
the corpse, the cold, stiff body feels what is like it in its 
surroundings. Pie expressed the opinion that every man's 

1 v. 120 f. 

2 Compare, for details, Zeller, I. 525 f . That Parmenides here showed 
not the least knowledge of the so-called number-theory, is another proof 
of the later origin of this philosophical teaching of the Pythagoreans, 
whose mathematical and astronomical investigations obviously preceded 
their metaphysical. See § 24. 



THE METAPHYSICAL CONFLICT 65 

ideas and intuitions are determined by * the mixture of 
these two elements in him. 

There is no ground for doubting the genuineness of the report 
of Plato 2 that Parmeuides in his old age went to Athens, where 
the young Socrates saw him. The statements of the dialogue 
Parmenides, which presents the fiction 8 of a conversation be- 
tween Parmenides and Socrates, are not wanting in probability. 
According to this, Parmenides was born about 515. He came 
from a distinguished family, and his intercourse with the 
Pythagoreans is well attested. 4 On the other hand, however, 
his acquaintance with Xenophanes 5 is also well proved, together 
with whom he directed the activity of the scientific association 
in his native city, Elea. Parmenides exercised a decided in- 
fluence on the political life also of this newly founded city, 6 and 
is in general represented as a serious, influential, and morally 
high character. 7 His work was written about 470 or somewhat 
later. It was in answer to that of Heracleitus, and at the same 
time it inspired the theories developed somewhat later and 
almost contemporaneously by Empedocles, Anaxagoras, Leu- 
cippus, and Philolaus (Chap. III.). It is in verse, and shows 
a peculiar amalgamation of abstract thought and plastic poetic 
fancy. The greater portion of the preserved fragments came 
from the first and ontological section of the poem, which was 
perhaps also called -rrepl <£vo-ew?. Besides Karsten and Mullach, 
Am. Peyron (Parmenidis et Empedoklis fragmenta, Leipzig, 
1810) and Heinr. Stein (Symb. philologorum Bonnensium in 
honorem F. Ritschleii, Leipzig, 1864, p. 763 f.) have collected 
and discussed the fragments. Compare Vatke, Parmenidis 
Veliensis doctrina, Berlin, 1844 ; A. Baumker, Die Einheit des 
P'scJien Seins (Jahrb. f. kl. Mass. PhiloL, 1886, 541 f.). 

20. ^Whereas Parmenides made a no inconsiderable con- 
cession to the customary idea of the plurality and change 
of things, at least in his construction of an hypothetical 

1 v. 146 f. 

2 Thecetetus, 183 e. 

3 Parmenides, 127 b ; Sophist, 217 c. 

4 Diog. Laert., IX. 25 ; Strabo, 27, 1, 1. 
6 Arist. Met., I. 5, 986 b, 22. 

6 Diog. Laert., IX. 23, according to Speusippus. 

7 Plato, Thecet, 183 e: compare Soph., 237 a; Par?n., 127 b. 

5 



66 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

physics his friend and pupil Zeno of Elea proceeded to 
refute even this customary point of view, and thereby to 
establish directly the teaching of his master concerning 
the unity and unchangeableness of Being} The habit of 
abstract thinking, which was raised to a pre-eminence by 
Parmenides, manifested itself here in the way in which his 
pupil turned entirely from the earlier physical tendency of 
science. Zeno was no longer concerned in apprehending 
or understanding empirical reality. 1 He was interested only 
in the conceptual defence of the paradoxes of his teacher. 
In seeking to discover, therefore, the contradictions which 
inhere in ordinary opinions regarding the plurality and 
mutability of things, he employed in a more partisan spirit 
than Parmenides arguments not based on subject matter 
or empirical fact, but only those of formal logic. 

This appeared primarily in the form of the proof, — first 
systematically and expertly used, as it seems, by Zeno. 
By the continuous repetition of contradictory disjunc- 
tives, he sought to deny exhaustively all the possibilities 
of comprehension and defence of the assailed thought, 
until it was at last brought into obvious contradictions. 
On account of this keen application of the apparatus 
of logic, which lets the entire proof seem to be controlled 
by the law of contradiction, we may suppose that Zeno first 
had a clear consciousness of formal logical relations. 
Aristotle even called him the inventor of dialectic. 2 

All the difficulties that Zeno by this method found in 
the ideas of multiplicity and movement refer to the infinity 
of space and time, and indeed partly to the infinitely large, 
partly to the infinitely small. These difficulties simply 
prove in the last instance the impossibility of thinking 
exclusively of continuous spatial and temporal quantities 

1 Zeller, II 4 . 538, for unimportant and even trivial notes which seem 
to controvert this, and for the most part rest upon misconceptions. 

2 Diog. Laert., VIII. 57. 



THE METAPHYSICAL CONFLICT 67 

as analyzed into discrete parts, — of thinking of the in- 
finity of the perceptive process. Upon this ground the 
difficulties of Zeno could find no conclusive solution until the 
very real and difficult problems resting on them were consid- 
ered from the point of view of the infinitesimal calculus. 

Compare Aristotle, Physics, in many places with the comments 
by Simplicius. Bayle, Diet. hist, et crit., article Zenon ; Herbart, 
Einleitung in die Philos., § 139 ; Metaph., § 284 f. ; Hegel, Gesch. 
d. Phil, Complete Works, Vol. XIII. 312 f. ; Wellmann, Zenon's 
Beweise gegen die Beivegung und Hire Widerlegungen, Frankfort 
a. O., 1870; C. Dunan, Les arguments de Zenon d'Elee contre 
le mouvement, Nantes, 1884. 

The proofs advanced by Zeno against the multiplicity 
of what really is, were two, and they were concerned in 
part with magnitude, in part with number. As regards 
magnitude, whatever possesses Being must, if it be many, 
be on the one hand infinitely small and on the other 
infinitely great : infinitely small because the aggregation 
of ever so many parts, of which every one, being indivisible, 
has no magnitude, can result also in no magnitude ; 
infinitely great because the juxtaposition of two parts pre- 
supposes a boundary between the two, which, as something 
real, must itself likewise have spatial magnitude, but on 
this account must again be parted by boundaries from the 
two minor portions of which the same is true, etc., etc. 
Again, as regards number, whatever possesses Being must, if 
it be supposed to be many, be thought as both limited and 
unlimited. It must be limited because it is just as 
many as it is, no more nor less. It must be unlimited 
because two different things possessing Being must be 
separated by a boundary which as a third must itself be 
different from these, and must be separated from them both 
by a fourth and fifth, and so ad infinitum." 1 

1 The second part of the argument is essentially the same in both 
proofs, and was called by the ancients the argument eVc dixorofxias, in 



68 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

It is probable, and also chronologically quite possible, that 
these proofs were even at that time directed against the begin- 
nings of Atomism (§ 23). They are intended to show that the 
world cannot be thought as an aggregation of atoms. Consist- 
ent with this view is the further circumstance that Zeno's 
polemic was made against the idea of mutability of what pos- 
sesses Being only in the sense of /aViyo-ts, not in the sense of aAAoiw- 
0-6? (qualitative change). Atomism affirmed klvtjo-ls, and denied 
qualitative change. There is, in addition, a third argument 
against the plurality of Being, which Zeno seemed rather to indi- 
cate than to develop. This is the so-called Sorites, according to 
which it is inconceivable how a bushel of corn could make a 
noise when the single kernels make none. This argument 
became effective in the polemic against the atomists, who 
sought to derive qualitative determinations from the joint motion 
of atoms. Presumably against atomism there was directed 
another argument of Zeno, which dealt neither with the plural- 
ity nor the motion of what possesses Being, but with the 
reality of empty space, which was the presupposition of move- 
ment to the atomists. Zeno showed that if what possesses 
Being should be thought as in space, this space as an actuality 
must be thought to be in another space, etc., ad infinitum. 

On the other hand, the application which Zeno made of the 
categories of infinity and finiteness, of the unlimited and 
limited, appears to suggest a relationship to the Pythagoreans, 
in whose investigations these ideas played a great r61e. § 19 ; 
§ 24. 

The contradiction involved in the conception of motion 
Zeno tried to prove in four ways : (1) By the impossibility 
of going through a fixed space. This means that the infinite 
divisibility of the space to be passed through will not allow 
the beginning of motion to appear thinkable. (2) By the 
impossibility of passing through a space that has movable 
limits. This supposes the goal, which is to be reached in 
any finite time, to be pushed away, though perhaps ever so 
little. An example of this is Achilles, who cannot catch 
the tortoise. (3) By the infinitely small amount of motion 
at any instant of time, since the body in motion during any 

which dichotomy is used not in the logical but in the original physical 
sense. - 



THE METAPHYSICAL CONFLICT 69 

individual instant of time is at some definite point, i. e. at 
rest. He used the resting arrow as an example. (4) By 
the relativity of the amount of motion. A motion of a 
carriage appears to differ in amount according as it is 
measured in its process of separation by a stationary 
carriage or by one in motion in the opposite direction. 

Little is known about the life of Zeno. If one holds that 
the exact chronological reports in the dialogue of Parmenides 
are fictitious aud the statements of the ancients about the 
aKfjirj are doubtful, nevertheless it is certain Zeno can have 
been scarcely a generation younger than Parmenides. One 
will not make a mistake if one places the length of his life at 
sixty years, between 490 and 430. He was, then, the contempo- 
rary of Empedocles, Anaxagoras, Leucippus, and Philolaus, and 
it is easily possible that he held fast to Parmenides' doctrine 
of Being in its conceptual abstractness in direct contrast to 
the remodellings of it by these men. His well-attested £vy- 
ypanixa was composed in prose, and, to suit his formal schema- 
tism, was divided into chapters. In these the single vTroOzaus 
found their reductio ad absurdum. 1 If the presentation of 
these in accordance with their polemic nature had the form 
of question and answer, 2 then this is probably the beginning 
of the philosophic dialogue-literature which later developed 
so richly. 3 

Of lesser significance 4 was Melissus of Samosj, Not a 
native Eleatic, he was also not a complete and consistent 
supporter of Parmenides's doctrine of Being. He was 
somewhat the junior of the Eleatic, and lived on into the 
time of the eclectic tendency in which the opposing the- 
ories began to fade out (§ 25). In the main, to be sure, 
he thoroughly defended the Eleatic fundamental principle, 
and in a manner obviously antagonistic to Empedocles, 
Anaxagoras, Leucippus, and in part to the Milesian physics. 

i Plato, Farm., 127 c ff.; Simpl. Phys., 30 v, 139, 5. 

2 Arist. Trepi (ro(f). e\ey X ; 10, 170 b, 22. 

3 Diog. Laert, III. 48. 

4 Arist. Met., I. 5, 986 b, 27 ; Phys., I. 3, 186 a, 8. Trepi ao<p. eXey*. 
5, 167 b, 13. 



70 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

*Yet he stood with his doctrine of the infinity of the One in 
so striking a contrast to Parmenides, and in such obvious 
harmony with Anaximander, that he appears as a real 
intermediary between the two. The form of his arguments 
shows the influence of the dialectic schematism of Zeno. 
Melissus tried to prove in these that (1) what really is, 
is eternal because it can arise out of neither what is nor 
what is not; (2) that what really is, is without beginning 
and end, temporally and spatially, i. e. infinite (aTreipov) ; 
(3) that what really is, is single, since several things that 
really are, would limit one another in space and time ; (4) 
that what really is, is unchangeable, motionless, and condi- 
tionless, because every change involves a kind of origina- 
tion and ending, and every movement presupposes empty 
space which cannot be thought as possessing Being. It is 
thus clear that Aristotle correctly found the conception of 
the ev in Melissus to be more materialistic than in Parmen- 
ides. What Melissus won by such an approximation to 
the Milesian physics, when he still denied every change 
to Being, is not clear. His theory appears, therefore, to be 
a compromise without any strong principle. 

Melissus, son of Ithagenes, was a navarch, under whom the 
Samian fleet conquered the Athenians in 442. His personal 
relation to the Eleatics has not been explained. His ^'yypa/^a 
(■n-epl Screws or 7rept tov 6Wo?, Simplicius and Snidas) was writ- 
ten in prose. Compare F. Kern, Zur Wilrdigung des M., (Stet- 
tin, 1880) ; A. Pabst, Be M. P. fragmentis (Bonu, 1889) ; M. 
Offner, Zur Beurtheilung des M. (Arch.f. Gesch. d. Pliilos., IV. 
12 f.). 

r~ 

The polemic of Zeno gave clearest expression to the 
fundamental principle of the Eleatic philosophy. He 
thought out logically and consistently the conceptually 
necessary concept of Being, which in itself alone did not 
suffice for the apprehension and explanation of the empiri- 
cally actual. The Heracleitan thesis that the essence of 



EFFORTS TOWARD RECONCILIATION ?]_ 

things is to be sought in an orderly process of perpetual 
change, stood opposed to it. Zeno's argument was purely 
ontological. It recognized only the one increate and un- 
changeable Being, and denied the reality of multiplicity 
and Becoming without also explaining their appearance. 
The argument of Heracleitus was entirely genetic. It 
seized upon the process itself and its permanent modes with- 
out satisfying the need of connecting this process with an 
ultimate and continuous actuality, The concept of Being 
is, however, a necessary postulate of thought, and the pro- 
cess of occurrence is a fact not to be denied. Consequently, 
from the opposition of these two doctrines, Hellenic philos- 
ophy gained a clear view of the task which in an indefinite 
way underlay the very initial conception of the apxv- This 
task was from Being to explain the process of phenomenal 
change J 

3. Efforts toward Reconciliation. 

The above problem gave rise to a number of philosophi- 
cal theories which are best designated as efforts toward 
reconciliation between the thought motifs of the Eleatic and 
Heracleitan schools. Since all the arguments aim at so 
modifying the Eleatic idea of Being that from it the or- 
derly process of occurrence in the Heracleitan sense may 
seem conceivable, they are at once of a metaphysical and 
physical character. 

Two ways were open for the solution of this problem : 
one led from Parmenides, the other from Heracleitus. 
Yrhe inadequacy of the Eleatic concept of Being to explain 
empirical plurality and change was due essentially to its 
qualities of singleness and spatial immobility. If these 
characteristics, however, were given up, those of non- 
Becoming, indestructibility, and qualitative permanence 
could be more strongly maintained in order to explain pro- 



72 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

cess and change by means of a plurality of objects pos- 
sessing Being (Seienden), with the help of spatial motion. 
The theories of Empedocles, Anaxagoras, and the Atomists 
moved in this direction. Common to them all was the 
pluralism of substances, and the mechanistic method of 
explanation, in virtue of which origin, change, and destruc- 
tion were supposed to be derived merely from the motions 
of these substances unchangeable in themselves. These 
theories were in extreme antithesis to the hylozoistic 
monism of the Milesians in particular. On the other 
hand, these three systems were distinguishable from one 
another partly as to the number and quality of the sub- 
stances that each assumed to exist, partly as to the rela- 
tionships of substances to motion and moving force. The 
insufficiency of the Heracleitan theory consisted, however, 
in its establishing the concept of the rhythm of the process 
of occurrence, but in retaining nothing else of what really 
is, as entering into these changes. Heracleitus had not 
recognized any one of the empirical materials, nor any 
abstract noumenon, and consequently nothing as Being. 
If now Parmenides showed that thinking undeniably pre- 
supposes something that really is, one would be forced to 
try to vindicate the character of Being for the relations 
and connections which Heracleitus had retained as the 
sole permanence. This the Pythagoreans attempted to do 
with their peculiar number theory] 

These four efforts toward reconciliation sprang accordingly 
simultaneously out of one and the same need. Their represen- 
tatives were nearly contemporaneous. From this fact are 
explained not only a number of the similarities and affinities in 
their doctrines, but also the circumstance that they frequently, 
particularly in polemics, seem to have referred directly to one 
another. This is at the same time a proof of the lively scien- 
tific interest and interchange of ideas in the middle of the fifth 
century through the entire circle of Greek civilization. 

The "efforts toward a reconciliation" used as a basis for 
associating these philosophers here is fairly generally recognized 



EFFORTS TOWARD RECONCILIATION 73 

for the first three, although on the one hand Anaxagoras is 
usually set apart by himself (Hegel, Zeller, Ueberweg), be- 
cause we have overestimated his doctrine of the vovs. On the 
other hand, Atomism (Schleiermacher, Ritter) has naturally been 
classified with Sophistry. Compare, respectively, § 22 and § 23. 
Yet, from the time of the Pythagoreans until now, Striimpell 
alone has preceded me in this proposed view. Brandis treats 
indeed the Pythagoreans for the first time before the Sophists, 
but as a tendency independent of the others. 

21. The first and most imperfect of these attempts at 
reconciliation was that of Empedocles. He proceeded 
expressly from the thesis of Parmenides that there can 
be no origination and destruction as such. In his effort 
to explain apparent origination and destruction, he said 
that every origination should be regarded as a combi- 
nation, and every destruction a separation of the original 
elements. 1 He called the original materials the pi^ixara 
TrdvTcov, and he does not seem to have employed the later 
customary expression, aroL'xela. The predicates of " unori- 
ginated," "imperishable," " unchangeable," belong to the 
elements. They are eternal Being ; and the manifold and 
change of single things are supposed to be explained by 
spatial motion, by virtue of which they are mixed in differ- 
ing relations to one another. 

Accordingly, Empedocles should apparently be accredited 
with the priority of forming this conception of the element 
that has been so powerful in the development of our science 
of nature. It is the conception of a material, homoge- 
neous in content, qualitatively unchangeable, and liable to 
changing states of motion and to mechanical division. 
He got this conception, nevertheless, in the attempt to make 
the concept of Being of Parmenides useful in the explana- 
tion of nature. Much less happy, although historically 

1 Plutarch, Plac, I. 30 (Dox., 326) cf)v(ris ovdtvos iariv drrdvTwv Ovtjtwv 
ovde tis ovXo/jLevov Oavdroio reXevrf}, aXka /jlovov fili-is re 8id\\a£;is re /AiytPTOiv 
eori, (favcris S'enl rots dvo/xd&Tcu dvOpatnouriv. 



74 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

quite as effective, was the point of view which Empedocles 
formed of the number and essence of these elements. He 
adduced the well-known four : earth, air, fire, and water. 

The choice of four fundamental elements was the result 
of no systematic conception on the part of Empedocles, in the 
way that Aristotle, by whom this theory was established and 
made the common property of all literature, later made them a 
fundamental part of his system. As it appears, it was the result 
of an impartial consideration of the previous philosophic theories 
of nature : water, air, fire are to be found as elements among 
the Ionians ; and earth in the hypothetical physics of the Ele- 
atics. That Empedocles 1 placed fire over against the three other 
elements, and thus returned to the two divisions of Heracleitus 
(§ 19), reminds us of this latter. Nevertheless the number 
of elements as four has in it something arbitrary and immature, 
as likewise appears from the superficial characterization that 
Empedocles gave to each singly. 2 

Empedocles to all appearances was not able to say how 
the different qualities of particular things were derived 
from their combining. Quantitative relationships and 
states of aggregation might appear to be thus derived, 
but not particular qualities. Consequently Empedocles 
seems to have had only the former in mind when he so 
described the process of combination and separation, that 
therein the protruding parts of one body were supposed to 
press into the pores, i. e. into the interstices, 3 of another body. 
Empedocles seems to be referring to the former also in 
his defining the relationship and the strength of the recip- 
rocal attraction of empirical things by the stereometrical 
similarity between the emanations of one substance and 
the pores of another. As to the qualitative difference 

1 Arist. Met., I. 4, 985 a, 32 ; De gen. et corr., II. 3, 330 b, 19. 

2 Zeller, P. 690. 

3 That this acceptation presupposed a discontinuity of the original 
matter, and hardly was to be thought without the presupposition of empty 
space, which he with the Eleatics denied (fr. v. 91, Arist. De coelo, IV. 
2, 309 a, 19), appears to have furnished no difficulty to Empedocles. 



EFFORTS TOWARD RECONCILIATION 75 

between individual things, he taught only in very general 
terms that this difference depends on the different masses 
in which all or only some of the elements exist in 
combination. 

But the more that Empedocles claimed the character of 
the Parmenidean Being for his four elements, the less could 
he find in them an explanation of the motion in which they 
must exist according to his theory of union and separation. 
As pure changeless Beings the elements could not move them- 
selves, but only be moved. \To explain the world, the theory 
needed further, then, beside the four elements, a cause of 
motion or a moving force. Here, in the statement of this 
problem, appears first completely Empedocles's opposition to 
the hylozoism of the Milesians. He was the first in whose 
theory force and matter are differentiated as separate cosmic 
powers. Under the influence of Parmenides he had accord- 
ingly so conceived the world-stuff that the ground of motion 
could not be found in it itself^ So, in order to explain the 
cosmic process, he had to find a force different from the 
stuff and moving it. Although Empedocles introduced this 
dualism into the scientific thought of the Greeks, it appeared 
not in sharp conceptual, but in mythical-poetic form ; for 
he designated the two cosmic forces which caused the com- 
bination and separation of the primitive substances, as Love 
and Hate. 

The personification, which Empedocles moreover, as like- 
wise Parmenides in his didactic poem, extended to the ele- 
ments, was mythical and poetic; so also the representation 
inadequate because stated in terms of sense and not developed 
to conceptual clearness, was of the same character. Indeed, it 
is not certain from the passages in which his principles (ap^al) 
were enumerated as six in all, whether or not he thought of 
the two forces incidentally as bodies (Arist. De gen. et corr., 
I. 1, 314 a, 16; Simpl. Phys. 6 v, 25, 21), which as such were 
mingled with the other substances. Obviously he formed 
no sharp idea of the nature of the actuality and the effi- 
ciency that belong to Love and Hate. There is the additional 



76 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

fact that the duality of forces not only was called forth by the 
theoretic need of representing the different causes in the opposed 
processes of cosmic union and separation ; but it was also 
occasioned by considerations of worth, in which Love is the 
cause of Goodness and Hate of Evil (compare Aristotle, Met., I. 
4, 984 b, 32). The view of Aristotle is supported by the predi- 
cates which Empedocles (fragment v. 106 f.) attributes to 
(fukoTTjs and veiKos. 

From these presuppositions Empedocles derived an ex- 
planation of the cosmic process, not indeed conceiving each 
individual occurrence as ever and always arising from a 
universal law of combination and separation, but yet satis- 
fying the demands of the Heracleitan philosophy by the 
assumption of a perpetual cyclic process of development. 
He taught, namely, that the four elements, that he assumed 
as alike in their mass, change out of a state of perfect 
mingling and equality, separate by the action of the velicos, 
and become completely sundered ; that then from this state 
of separation they pass back through the influence of the 
<J)l\6t7]<; to their original absolute intermixture. There re- 
sults from this a cycle of four continuously dissolving cosmic 
states : (1) that of the unlimited supremacy of Love and 
of the perfect unification of all the elements, which is called 
by Empedocles acjialpos and also designated as to ev or 0e6? ; 
(2) that of the process of successive separation through 
the constantly growing preponderance of vel/cos ; (3) that 
of the absolute separation of the four elements through the 
sole supremacy of Hate ; (4) that of the process of succes- 
sive recombination through the increased predominance of 
(fjiXoTrjs. 

Compare Arist. Phys., VIIT. 1, 250 b, 26. 

It is clear that a world of individual things can appear only 
in the second and fourth stages of the cosmic process, and that 
such a world is characterized every time by the opposition and 
conflict between the combining and separating principles. 
Here is the place of the Heracleitan fundamental principle in 
the Empedoclean conception of the cosmos. On the other 



EFFORTS TOWARD RECONCILIATION 77 

hand, it can be said that the two parts of the Parmenidean 
didactic poem appear no longer in the opposition of Being and 
Appearance, but in the relationship of changing cosmic states. 
The first and third phases are acosmic in the Eleatic sense ; the 
second and fourth are, on the contrary, full of the Heracleitan 
7r0A.eyu.0s. 

All that we have of the particulars of the theory of Empe- 
docles seems to teach that he regarded the present state of 
the world as the fourth phase, in which the elements that 
have been separated by Hate are reuniting through Love 
into the Sphairos. At least in reference to the formation 
of the world he taught that the separated elements have 
been brought through Love into the whirling motion that 
is in the process of uniting them. Originally the air en- 
compassed the whole like a sphere, and by virtue of this 
motion fire broke out from below. The air was pressed 
below and into the middle, was mixed with the water into 
mud, and then formed into the earth. The two hemi- 
spheres originated in this way : one was light and fiery ; 
the other dark, airy, and interspersed with masses of fire, 
which on account of the rushing of the air in rotatory 
motion around the earth created day and night. 

In particular, Empedocles showed — not without dependence 
on the Pythagoreans — highly developed astronomical ideas 
concerning the illumination of the moon from the sun, concern- 
ing eclipses, the inclination of the ecliptic, etc., and also many 
interesting meteorological hypotheses. 

Empedocles had an especial interest in the organic 
world. He regarded plants as primary organisms and as 
having souls like animals. He compared in isolated 
remarks the formation of fruit with the procreation of 
animals, their leaves with hair, feathers, and scales ; and so 
one finds in him the beginnings of a comparative mor- 
phology. Also numerous physiological observations of his 
are preserved. But especially are there biological reflec- 



78 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

tions, in which he in some measure in the spirit of the 
present theory of adaptation explained, although with fanci- 
ful naivete, the existence of the present vital organisms 
by the survival of purposeful forms from things that on 
the whole were aimlessly created. 1 

Empedocles did not except man 2 from this purely me- 
chanical origination, and he constructed a large number of 
interesting single hypotheses in respect to his physiological 
functions. The blood plays an important role in this 
theory. It was to him the real carrier of life, and in it he 
believed he could see the most perfect combination of the 
four elements, lit is of especial interest that he conceived 
the process of perception and sensation as analogous to his 
universal theory of the interaction of elements. He ex- 
plained this process as contact of the small parts of the 
perceived things with the similar parts of the perceiving 
organs, wherein the former were supposed to press upon 
the latter, as in hearing ; or the latter upon the former, as 
in sight! Since then, in general, such interaction was to 
his mind the more close, the more nearly similar were the 
emanations and pores, he established the principle, there- 
fore, that all external things are known by that in us 
which is similar to them. Herein was involved to some 
degree the idea that man is a microcosm, the finest admix- 
ture of all the elements. 

Hence it followed for Empedocles that all perceptual 
knowledge depends upon the combination of elements in 
the body and especially in the blood, and that the spiritual 
nature depends on the physical nature. Just on this 

1 Aristotle has brought this thought into abstract expression, and it 
contains the whole modern development theory in nuce. Phys., II. 8, 
198 b, 29 J onov fiev ovv anavra crvvefir] &cnvep kclu el eveicd rov iyevero, 
ravra fiev eacodr), oko tov avrofxarov crvcrTavra eViT^Sfio)?, ocra Se fir) ovtcos, 
a7ro)Xero kcu an-oAAurai KaOancp 'Efnre&oKkrjs \eyei, etc. 

2 He appears to have made good use of the tales about the centaurs. 



EFFORTS TOWARD RECONCILIATION 79 

account, moreover he could deplore incidentally, as Xeno- 
phanes deplored, the limitation of human knowledge ; and 
could assert, on the other hand, with Heracleitus and Par- 
menides, that true knowledge does not grow out of sense 
perception, but only out of reflection (voeiv) and reason 
(vovs). 1 

Einpedocles of Agrigentum, the first Dorian in the history of 
philosophy, lived probably from 490-430. He came from a 
rich and respectable family which had been partisans for the 
democracy in the municipal struggles. Like his father, Meton, 
Empedocles distinguished himself as a citizen and statesman, 
but later he fell into the disfavor of the other citizens. In his 
vocation of physician and priest, and with the paraphernalia of 
a magician, 2 he then travelled about through Sicily and Magna 
Grsecia. Many stories circulated into later time concerning his 
death, like that well-known one of his leap into iEtna. In this 
religious role he taught the doctrine of transmigration and of an 
apparently purer intuition of God, like that of the Apollo cult. 
These teachings, which were not consistent in content with his 
metaphysico-physical theories, show, however, much the greater 
similarity to the teaching of Pythagoras (§ 12). Pythagorean- 
ism he certainly knew, and indeed his entire career suggests a 
copy of that of Pythagoras. When we consider his political 
affiliations, it is improbable that he had any close connection 
with the Pythagorean society. Empedocles stood comparatively 
isolated, — save his acquaintance with the teachings of Hera- 
cleitus and Parmenides, the latter of whom he presumably 
knew personally. Nevertheless he seems to have been affili- 
ated with a yet larger body in that he is characterized as one 
of the first representatives of rhetoric. 3 He had even con- 
nections with the so-called Sicilian school of rhetoric (or ora- 
tory) , in which are preserved the names of Tisias and Korax as 
well as that of Gorgias, whom they antedate. 4 Only -n-epl cpva-eo^ 
and KaOapixot are the writings of Empedocles that can be 
authenticated. The preserved small fragments are especially 
collated by Sturz (Leipzig, 1805), Karsten (Amsterdam, 1838), 
and Stein (Bonn, 1852). Compare Bergk, De proemio, E. Berl., 

1 Fr. v. 24; 81. 

2 Thus he pictured himself in the beginning of the Songs of Purifica* 
cation (icaOapfxoi). 

3 Diog. Laert.. 

4 See below, § 26. 



80 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

1839 ; Panzerbieter, Beitrage zur Kritik und Erlduterung des E. 
(Meiningen, 1844) ; Schlager, E. quatenus Heraclitum secutus 
sit (Eisenach, 1878). — O. Kern, E. und d. Orphiker (Arch. f. 
Gesch. d. Ph., I. 498 f.). 

22. \ Older in years, younger in works than Empedo- 
cles," 1 Anaxagoras brought the movement of thought, 
which had been begun by Empedocles, to an end in one 
direction. He, like Empedocles, was convinced that we do 
not use language correctly when we speak of origination 
and destruction, since the mass of the world must remain 
unchangeably the same. 2 On this account apparent origi- 
nation and destruction are better designated as combina- 
tion and separation (o-vy/cpLcris sive av/uLfxt^t^). Whatever 
enters into combination or whatever suffers "separation was 
to him, also, a plurality of original substances which he 
called xprjfjLaTa or airepixara. Thus far he agreed with his 
predecessor. But he took decided exception to the arbi- 
trary assumption of Empedocles that there are only four 
elements, since it is impossible to explain the qualita- 
tive distinctions of empirical things by the union of these 
four elements. Since the Parmenidean idea of Being 
excludes the new creation and destruction of qualitative 
determinations, and demands qualitative unchangeable- 
ness for the totality of primitive materials, Anaxago- 
ras argued that there are as many qualitative ^ptj^ara, 
different from one another, as there are qualitative deter- 
minations in empirical things. The things of which we 
are sensible are composite, and they are named according to 
the primitive material that prevails in them at any par- 
ticular instant. 3 Their qualitative change (aWoicoo-is) 
consists in the fact that other primitive materials enter 
into the combination or some are excluded from it. 

i Arist. Met, I. 3, 984 a, 11. 

2 Fr. 14. 

3 Arist. Pliys.,l\ 187b. 



EFFORTS TOWARD RECONCILIATION 81 

The xpr){jLara must, according to this, be thought as divis- 
ible ; l and in antithesis to the perceived things, which con- 
sist of heterogeneous components, we must designate as 
XprffiaTa all those substances which fall into homogeneous 
parts, however far they be divided. Therefore Aristotle 
designated the airepfjuara of Anaxagoras as 6/uLoiofieprj, 
and in later literature they go under the name of homoio- 
meriai. Consequently, what Anaxagoras had here in mind 
was nothing other than the chemist's idea of the element. 
The utter inadequacy of data on which Anaxagoras could 
depend appears in the development of his theory. For 
since observation had as yet not been directed to chemical, 
but only to mechanical analysis, the constituents of ani- 
mals, such as bones, flesh, and marrow, as well as metals, 
were enumerated as elements. Further, because the 
philosopher possessed no means of fixing upon a deter- 
mined number of elements, he declared them to be num- 
berless and differing in form (IBia), color, and taste. 

When Aristotle in several places (see Zeller, I 4 . 875 f.) cites 
only organic substances in Anaxagoras as examples of the ele- 
ments, he is speaking more out of his preference for this field 
than of an inclination on the part of Anaxagoras to refer 
inorganic matter to the organic. There is not the slightest 
trace to be discovered in Anaxagoras' cosmogony of a qualita- 
tive distinction between the organic and the inorganic. In 
particular, what we may call his teleology is not by any means 
confined to the organic. 

As regards the motion of these substances, Anaxagoras 
also separated the principle of Being from that of Becom- 
ing, but in an entirely different way from what we find 
in Empedocles. The poetical and mythical form of this 
thought he stripped off; but at the same time, instead 

1 In remarkable dependence on Parmenides, Anaxagoras neverthe- 
less makes a polemic, like Empedocles, against the acceptance of empty- 
space (Arist. Phys., IV., 6, 213 a, 22), and at the same time also against 
the finite divisibility of matter postulated in the concept of atoms. 

6 



82 HISTOKY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

of reflecting like Heracleitus upon the antagonistic pro- 
cesses of motion, he emphasized again the unity of the 
cosmic process. ^Since Anaxagoras, as is the case with 
all naive conception, could think of the actual only as 
material stuff, he had to seek among the numberless 
yprj/jLara for one which is the common cause of motion 
for all the others. This primitive dynamic material or 
motion-stuff was conceived by him as having life within 
itself, after the analogy of the Ionian cosmic matter. It 
moves the others from within itself. 1 ! Its nature, however, 
was inferred by Anaxagoras from the character of the 
world of perception that it brought into being. This 
world presents itself as an ordered, purposeful whole, 
and the forming force must also be orderly and purposeful. 
Therefore after an analogy 2 to the principle actively 
working in living beings, Anaxagoras called it the vovs, 
the reason, or, as it may best be translated, the thought- 
stuff (Denkstoff). Far from being an immaterial princi- 
ple, the " spirit " is to Anaxagoras corporeal matter, but 
indeed in a state of exceeding refinement. It is the 
"lightest," the most mobile, the only matter that moves 
itself. It represents the \6yos, both in the macrocosm 
and in the microcosm. As regards the form and move- 
ment of the cosmic process, it has all the functions of 
the Heracleitan fire. 

The order (koV/xos) and purposefulness of the empirical 
world, on which Anaxagoras depended in his assertion of the 
vovs SiaKooytuH' ra 7rdvTa, was not noted by hira so much in single 
terrestrial things as in the great relationships of the universe, in 

1 Aristotle in Physics, VIII. 5, 256 b, 24, proved only that Anaxagoras 
has called the vovs the arraBr^s and d/xiyrjs. The predicate clklvt^tos is only 
an inference of Aristotle. The mobility of the vovs and its implications 
in single things is clearly set forth in passages like Stob. EcL, I. 7 90 
{Box., 392), and Simpl. Pliys., 35 recto, 164, 23. 

2 Arist. Met., I. 3, 984 b, 15, KaOanep iv rots £gW. 



EFFORTS TOWARD RECONCILIATION 83 

the regular revolutions of the heavenly bodies. 1 His monism 
and the teleological method of his presentation rested on astro- 
nomical considerations. Compare W. Dilthey, Einleltung in d. 
Geisteswissenschaften, V. 201 f. He sought in a purely natu- 
ralistic way a physical explanation, and was not in the smallest 
degree concerned with religious matters. If he, as is very 
doubtful, called 2 the vov? God, yet this would only have been a 
metaphysical expression, as it had been among the Milesians. 
The doctrine of the vovs was taken by Aristotle very much in 
the sense of an immaterial spirituality, when in the well-known 
passage (Met., I. 3, 984 b, 17) Aristotle placed the doctrine of 
Anaxagoras as that of the only sober philosopher among them 
all. In the Hegelian interpretation, which even to-day is not 
outgrown, Anaxagoras is placed at the close of the pre-Sophis- 
tic development on account of his alleged discovery of the 
" Spirit." It sounds so fine when in this philosophy of nature 
the world principle becomes ever more " spiritual" in passing 
from water through air and fire until finally the " pure Spirit" 
has been as it were distilled from matter. £Rut this " Spirit "is 
likewise only living corporealhVy, i. e., that which moves itself. 
Anaxagoras with his vovs is scarcely a step nearer the immate- 
rial than Anaximenes with air, or Heracleitus with fire] On the 
other hand, we must not fail to recognize that in this character- 
ization of the moving principle Anaxagoras, in a still more em- 
phatic manner than Empedocles, had taken up the factor of a 
judgment of value into his theoretic explanation. Admiration 
of the beauty and harmony of the world dictated to him the 
acceptance of a thought-stuff arranging the universe according 
to a principle of order. 

This vovs, therefore, stands over against the other ele- 
ments. It alone is in itself pure and unmixed. It is sim- 
ple, and possesses through its " knowledge " a power over 
all other material stuff. 3 It plays somehow as a stimulus 
upon the other substances, which are mixed by it. It 
participates temporarily to a greater or less degree in the 
particular things thus originating. For, like all matter, it 

1 Simpl. 33 verso, 15G, 13; ndvTa SieKooyz^ore voos kcl\ tt]v TrepL-^ayprjcnv 
ravTrjv, r)v vvv nepi^copel rd re acrrpa, nai 6 rjXios kol t) (rekrjvrj kcu 6 drjp kcu 
6 aldrjp ol cLTVOKpivop-evoL. 

2 Cicero, Acad. II. 37, 118 ; Sext. Emp. Adv. math., IX. G. 

3 Fr. 7 and 8. 



84 HISTOEY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

also is quantitatively divisible and qualitatively unchange- 
able. Remaining essentially identical with itself, it is dis- 
tributed in different proportions in single things. 1 

Anaxagoras used this thought-stuff only to explain on 
the one hand the beginnings of motion, and on the other 
such single processes which he could not derive from the 
mechanism of the once for all awakened cosmic motion. 
What these processes in particular are, we cannot 2 ascer- 
tain from the reproaches made against Anaxagoras. 3 So 
far as our knowledge goes, the application that Anaxagoras 
has made of his vovs theory to explain the cosmic process 
is limited simply to this, — that he ascribed to the " order- 
ing " thought-stuff the beginning of motion, and that he 
then conceived the motion to go on mechanically by impact 
and pressure between the other primitive materials in a 
manner planned by the vovs. Connected with this is the 
fact that Anaxagoras denied a plurality both of coexisting 
and successive worlds, and that he aimed to describe only 
the origin of our present world. Consequently in distinc- 
tion from his predecessors he spoke therefore of a temporal 
beginning of the world. 

Preceding this beginning is a state of the most perfect 
mingling of all substances, reminding us of the Sphairos of 
Empedocles. In this mingling all xpVf jLara ^ w ^h the excep- 
tion of the voO?, are so minutely distributed that the whole 
possesses no particular character. 

This idea reminds us on the one hand of Chaos, on the other 
of the aireipov of Anaximander. In his delineation of this 
idea, we have the fact that he taught that the mixtures of dif- 
fering xprjfxara let only those qualities come into perception in 

1 How misjudged the meaning is, is clear, for Anaxagoras conceived 
his vovs as a divine being. 

2 It is highly improbable, according to Theoph. Hist, plant., III. 1, 4, 
that it concerns the genesis of the organism. 

3 Plato, PJicedo, 97 b; Arist. Met., I. 4, 985 a, 18. 



EFFORTS TOWARD RECONCILIATION 85 

which the components are all harmonized. He also in this 
way conceived the four elements of Empedocles as such mix- 
tures of primitive matter. 1 Absolute mixture has no quality ; 
ojjLov -n-avra xPW aTa W i s ^ ne beginning of the writing of 
Anaxagoras. 

In this Chaos the primitive thought-material first created 
at one point 2 a rotatory motion of great velocity. This, be- 
ing extended in broadening circles, led to the formation of the 
orderly world, and is further being continued on account of 
the infinity of matter. By this rotation two great masses are 
first differentiated which were characterized by the opposi- 
tion of Bright, Warm, Pure-light, and Dry, as against Dark, 
Cold, Dense-heavy, and Moist, and are designated by Anaxa- 
goras as aWrjp and a^p. z The latter is pressed into the centre, 
and condensed into water, earth, and stones. [His ideas of 
the earth show him to have been essentially influenced 
by the Ionians. I He regarded the stars as dissipated frag- 
ments of earth and stone that have become glowing in the 
fiery circle. He saw in the great meteor of Argospotamoi 
a confirmation of this theory and at the same time a proof 
of the substantial homogeneity of the world. Anaxagoras's 
astronomical view shows highly developed, many-sided ideas 
and inferences, which rest in part upon his own studies. 
He explained eclipses correctly ; and while he allowed to 
the sun and moon altogether too small dimensions, they 
were nevertheless very great compared to their perceptual 
size. 

Accordingly Anaxagoras was convinced that, as in Chaos, 
so in all individual things developed from it, the combina- 

1 Arist. De gen. et corr., I. 1,314 a, 24; Zeller, I 4 . 876. 

2 Presumably Anaxagoras assumed this point to be the pole star : see 
H. Martin, Memoires de Plnstitut, 29, 176 f. ; see Dilthey, op. cit. 

3 These antitheses remind us more of the Ionians than of Parmenides. 
In respect to the manifold of the mixture and the determination of the 
qualities, they stand in Anaxagoras obviously between the /xty/xa and the 
Empedoclean elements. 



86 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

tion of the cosmic elements is so fine and intimate that 
something at least of each one is everywhere. Thus the 
organic o-TrepfjLara develop as plants and animals on the 
separation of the water and earth, which separation was 
caused by the heavenly fire. But the vovs, as the vitalizing 
principle, stands in intimate relations with these, and its in- 
dependent power of motion was doubtless introduced here by 
Anaxagoras as the cause of functions that are not mechani- 
cally explicable. 1 He, too, seems to have given especial 
attention to sense perception, which, however, he derived, in 
entire opposition to Empedocles, from the reciprocal action 
of opposites influenced by the feeling of aversion. Accord- 
ingly perceptual knowledge acquired in this way is only 
relative. 2 In contrast to it, the truth is found solely through 
the \6yos, through the participation of the individual in the 
world reason. 

Anaxagoras originated in Clazomense in the circle of Ionian 
culture, from which apparently he got his rich scientific knowl- 
edge and his pronounced positive and physical interest. His 
birth is (Zeller, I 4 . 865 f., against Hermann) to be placed at 
about 500. We do not know about his education, particularly 
how he could have been so powerfully influenced by the Eleat- 
ics. He was of wealthy antecedents, and was regarded as an 
honorable gentleman, who, far away from all practical and polit- 
ical interests, "declared the heaven to be his fatherland, and 
the study of the heavenly bodies his life's task," — a statement 
in which, side by side with the presentation of a purely theo- 
retical ideal of life, is to be noted the astronomical tendency 
which also characterized his philosophy. About the middle of 
the century Anaxagoras, then the first among philosophers of 
renown, removed to Athens, where he formed a centre of scien- 
tific activity, and appears to have drawn about him the most 
notable men. He was the friend of Pericles, and became in- 

1 To this the objection of Aristotle applies, that Anaxagoras did 
not distinguish the principle of thought (vovs) from the animating (be- 
seelenden) principle (fax*})- (De an., I. 2, 404 b.) This objection 
certainly did not arise from immanent criticism. 

2 Arist. Met., IV. 5, 1009 b, 25; Sext. Emp., VII. 91. 



EFFORTS TOWARD RECONCILIATION. 87 

volved under the charge of impiety in the political suit brought 
against Pericles in 434. He was obliged in consequence of this 
to leave Athens and go to Lampsacus. Here he founded a 
scientific association, and while high in honor he died a few 
years later (about 428). The fragments of the only writing 
preserved of his (as it appears) 7rept <£vo-ews (in prose) have 
been collected by Schaubach (Leipzig, 1827) and Schorn (with 
those of Diogenes of Apollonia, Bonn, 1820) ; Panzerbieter, De 
fragmentorum Anax. or dine (Meiningen, 1836) ; Breier, Die 
Philosophie des An. nach Aristotles (Berlin, 1840) ; Zevort, 
Dissert, de la vie et la doctrine d' A. (Paris, 1843) ; Alexi, A. u, 
seine Philosophie (Neu-Ruppin, 1867) ; M. Heinze, Ueber den 
vovs des A. (Ber. d. /Sachs. Ges. d. TT., 1890). 

Archelaus is called a pupil of Anaxagoras, but appears, 
nevertheless, to be so much influenced also by other theories 
that he will be mentioned in a later place. The allegorical 
interpretation of the Homeric poem, which in part is ascribed to 
Anaxagoras himself (Diog. Laert., II. 11), in part to his pupil, 
Metrodorus, has only the slightest relation to his philosophy. 

23. The philosopher who desired to abandon the arbitrary 
theory of the four elements of Empedocles, was obliged, in 
order to oppose to it a consistent theory, to assert either 
that the qualitative determinations of things are all pri- 
mary, or that no one of them is. The first way Anaxagoras 
chose ; the Atomists the second. While in their explana- 
tion of empirical occurrence they also postulated a plurality 
of unchangeable things having Being, they had the boldness 
to deduce all qualitative distinctions of the phenomenal 
world from purely quantitative differentiations of the true 
essence of things. This is their especial significance in 
the history of European science. 

It has been customary in the history of philosophy to treat 
the theory of the Atomists in inseparable connection with the 
pre-Sophistic systems. This is explained from the fact that all 
direct knowledge fails concerning the founder of this theory, 
Leucippus and his doctrine, and that the teaching of the 
Atomists lies before us relatively complete only in the form 
that Democritus developed it. But between Leucippus and 
Democritus is an interval of certainly forty years, and this lies 
in that epoch of most strenuous mental labor, — which epoch 



88 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY. 

witnessed in Greece the beginnings of Sophism. Leucippus is 
the contemporary of Zeno, Empedocles, and Anaxagoras, but 
(Democritus is the contemporary of Socrates, and, in the works 
of his old age, of Plato.\ It is also consonant with this differ- 
ence of years that thelundamental thought of the Atomists 
in the form of the metaphysical postulate of Leucippus arose 
from the Heracleitan-Parmenidean problems ; but also that the 
development of that postulate, which Democritus gave to these 
problems, was for the first time possible upon the Sophistic 
theories as a basis, especially those *of Protagoras (§ 32). To 
these changed temporal conditions there is the further corre- 
spondence in the fact that those theories of the Atomists, which 
we can refer to Leucippus, remained entirely in the compass of 
the problems confronting his contemporaries, Empedocles and 
Anaxagoras. On the other hand, the theory of Democritus 
gives the impression of being a comprehensive system, like that 
of Plato. Therefore the reasons from the point of cosmology 
and from that of the subject matter require the beginnings of 
Atomism in Leucippus to be separated from the system of 
Democritus, which was conditioned by the subjective turn given 
to Greek thought. We must make this discrimination, however 
difficult it ma} 7 be in details. Accordingly in this place is to be 
developed only the general metaphysical basis of Atomism, 
which has grown out of Eleaticism. 1 

It was therefore on the one hand a complete misconception 
of the primal motives, but on the other a legitimate feeling — 
although defended entirely falsely in connection with precon- 
ceived notions — with which Schleiermacher (Gesch. d. Philos., 
ed. Windelband, III. 4 a, 73) and Ritter after him (Gesch. d. 
Philos., 1. 589 f.) sought to classify the Atomists with the Sophists. 
In Leucippus Atomism arose as an offshoot of Eleaticism. The 
theory of Democritus, however, far from being itself Sophistic, 
presupposed the theory of Protagoras. The suggestion of this 
relation may be found in Dilthey, JEinleitung in die Geistes- 
wissenschaften, I. 200. 

^Leucippus, the first representative of this theory, stands 
in the most marked dependence on the Eleatic teaching. 
To his mind also, Being excluded not only all origination 
and destruction, but all qualitative change. Likewise 
Being coincides with the corporeal, that is, the 6v with the 

1 As to the perfect certainty of ascribing this to Leucippus, see Zeller, 
I 4 . 843, n. 1. 



EFFORTS TOWARD RECONCILIATION. 89 

irXeov. By virtue of this coincidence Parmenidcs had felt 
compelled to deny the reality of empty space, and therefore 
also that of plurality and motion/ Should now, however, 
as the interest of physics demanded, plurality and motion 
be recognized as real, and a scientific apprehension of the 
actual again be rendered possible, then the simplest and 
most logical method was to declare * that " Non-Being," 
the Void (to /cevov), did nevertheless exist. The aim of 
this assumption, however, is simply this : to make possible 
plurality and mobility for that which really is. Thereby 
it becomes possible to create a world of experience from 
the " Yoid " and the multiform " Full " moving in the 
" Yoid," to construct that world from that which has no 
Being and from a multiplicity of those things that have 
Being. A categorical physics thus appears in place of the 
hypothetical physics of Parmenides, and in place of a 
problematical appears an assertorical and an apodeictic 
physics. 

^But while Leucippus departed from the Parmenidean 
concept of Being only so far as seemed absolutely neces- 
sary to explain plurality and motion, he still clung not only 
to the characteristic of unchangeableness (un-Becoming 
and indestructibility), but also to the thoroughgoing 
qualitative homogeneity of what possess Being. In oppo- 
sition to Empedocles and Anaxagoras, Leucippus therefore 
taught that all these varieties of what possess Being are 
homogeneous in quality. He agreed entirely with Par- 
menides that this quality is abstract corporeality (to ifkeov) 
devoid of all specific qualities. According to the Eleatics, 
all distinctions are due only to the permeation of that 
which really is not, by that which really is. So, on the 
one hand, to Leucippus distinctions between individuals 

1 Democritus seems to be the first to have made the pointed remark : 
fir) fiaWov to Sep 77 to fir)8ev elvai, " das Ichts sei um nicjils mehr real als das 
Nichts." Plut. Adv. col. 4, 2 (1109). 



90 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY. 

that really possess Being exist only in those qualities due 
to their limitation through that which really is not ; viz., 
empty space\ These are the distinctions of form and 
motion. On ^the other hand, each of the changeless sub- 
stances possessing Being must be thought as a corporeality, 
homogeneous in itself, a continuum and therefore indivisi- 
ble. Being, which is moved in empty space, therefore con- 
sists of innumerable, exceedingly small bodies. Leucippus 
called these Atoms (cito/jlol), every one of which is, like 
the Being of Parmenides, unoriginated, indestructible, un- 
changeable, indivisible, and homogeneous in itself and with 
all other Being. The single cosmic-Being of Parmenides 
was broken up into an infinite number of small primitive 
elements which, were they not separated by empty space, 
would constitute a single element in the sense of Empe- 
docles, and indeed would be the absolute qualitativeless ev 
of Parmenides. 

Of all the transformations of the Eleatic teaching, that of 
Leucippus is characterized by a striking simplicity, and by keen 
logical limitation to that which is indispensable to a professed 
explanation of the phenomenal world. At the same time it is 
clear that the Atomism which became later so important in the 
development of scientific theories did not grow out of experi- 
ence, or observations and the conclusions built upon them, but 
directly out of the abstractest metaphysical concepts and 
absolutely universal needs for the explanation of actuality. 

4Jp to this point the Atomistic theory has been regarded 
as a variant of the Eleatic metaphysic, arising from an 
interest in physics. [But, on the other hand, Leucippus is so 
far under the influence of Ionian monism that he does 
not seek the cause of motion in a force different from 
the stuff, but he regards spatial motion itself as a quality, 
immanent in the stuff/ The corporeality that is homoge- 
neous in all atoms did not, in his mind, possess the power 
to change itself qualitatively, that is to say, aXXotWt? ; but 
it did possess KlvqaLs, an original underivable motion that 



EFFORTS TOWARD RECONCILIATION. 91 

is given in its own essence. In fact, Leucippus seems to 
have understood by this term not so much that of heavi- 
ness, — fall from above downward, — but rather a chaotic 
primal condition of bodies moving^ disorderly, among each 
other in all directions (§ 32). At all events, the Atom- 
ists held this original state of motion as uncaused and 
self-evident. So we can see in their view the perfect 
synthesis of the Heracleitan and Eleatic thought : all homo- 
geneous elements of Being are thought as unchangeable, 
but at the same time as in a state of motion that is self- 
originated^ 

This is the extent to which the beginnings of Atomism 
may with certainty be ascribed to Leucippus. It is an 
attempt to explain the world by atoms in original motion 
in empty space. The purely mechanical part of the 
theory, that the world was formed by collision, lateral and 
rotatory motion, likewise presented itself to the founder of 
Atomism in the same form in which Democritus later 
developed it. It is not so easy to explain, however, how 
Leucippus solved the more difficult and delicate question 
regarding the manner in which the various empirical 
qualities arose from these complexes of atoms ; that is to 
say, the transformation of quantitative into qualitative 
differences. Of his answer we know nothing. The sub- 
jective method which Democritus applied to it was not as 
yet available to the founder of Atomism, since this method 
grew out of the investigations of Protagoras. Whether 
Leucippus 1 was content with setting up this origination 

1 To my mind, there is no foundation for the belief that Leucippus in 
his doctrine of the alo-drjrd employed the antithesis of (pvaet — vofup ; 
from its significance and following all tradition, this antithesis is So- 
phistic. The inference rests upon the obviously late and inaccurate note 
in Stobaeus, Eel., I. 1104 (Dox., 397 b, 9) from which it might also be 
adduced that Diogenes of Apollonia was an Atomist. It is certain that 
Leucippus, as an Eleatic, denied sense qualities as real. For some later 



92 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY. 

of the qualities out of the quantitative relationships only 
as a metaphysical postulate ; whether he explained these 
qualities, like Parmenides, simply as vain show and illu- 
sion ; or whether he in an uncertain manner, like Empedo- 
cles, derived all other material from the four elements 
and their mixtures, so that he too sought to refer empirical 
tilings back to the different form and size of the combining 
atoms, — ■ how far, in fact, he in general passed from the 
metaphysical principles to the specific development of the 
physical theory, — concerning all this it is doubtless too 
late to determine. 

From the allusions in his theory, and from the very uncertain 
reports from the extant literature, it is only safe to say that 
probably Leucippus was younger than Parmenides, considerably 
older than Democritus and contemporary with Empedocles and 
Anaxagoras. It is hardly possible to decide between the differ- 
ent reports, whether his residence was in Miletus, Elea, or 
Abdera. Since however his pupil (eToupos) Democritus doubt- 
less was an Abclerite, and came from a scientifically active circle 
which we cannot 1 possibly suppose to be that of the Magi, 
alleged to have been left behind by Xerxes, we may assume 
that a scientific activity was developed in Abdera in the second 
half of the sixth century, which city attained its highest glory 
under the influence of the colonists from Teos. Leucippus was 
its first representative of any significance. 2 Protagoras appears 
to have originated in the school of Abdera at a time between 
the two great Atomists (§ 26). That Leucippus put his thought 
in writing is not entirely certain, but is probable. Nothing of 
his work remains, however. In any event, even early in anti- 
quity, there was uncertainty about the authorship of what had 
been ascribed to him. 3 Theophrastus ascribed 4 to him the p4ya<s 
$l<xkoo-ijlo<$ which went under the name of Democritus. It is 

reporter this denial is identical with the assertion of their subjectivity 
(i/o/za>). Parmenides himself best teaches us how little this equivalence 
was possible for a pre-Sophistic thinker. 

1 Zeller, I 4 . 763. 

2 Diels. Aufsatze Zeller's Jubiliaum, p. 258 f. 

3 De Xen., Zen., Gorg., 6, 980 a, 7; iv rots AevKinnov Kakovfxevois 
Xoyots- 

4 Diog. Laert., IX. 4G. 



EFFORTS TOWARD RECONCILIATION. 93 

strange that in the memory of succeeding times and indeed in 
modern time (Bacon, Alb. Lange), even as in antiquity (Epicu- 
rus), he has been entirely overshadowed by Democritus. 1 

24. A Between these and in part already before them," 2 
the Pythagoreans sought finally to apply their mathematical 
studies to the solution of the Heracleitan-Eleatic problem: 
(§ 12)- 

However in this respect the Pythagoreans form no perfectly 
homogeneous whole. It appears rather that within the society, 
corresponding to its geographical extension and its gradual 
disintegration, the scientific work divided on different lines. 
Some Pythagoreans clung to the development of mathematics 
and astronomy ; others busied themselves partly with medicine, 
partly with the investigation of different physical theories (con- 
cerning both see § 25) ; others finally espoused the metaphysical 
theory, which so far as we know was constructed first by 
Phjlolaus and is usually designated as the number theory. 

Philolaus, if not the creator, at least the first literary repre- 
sentative of the "Pythagorean philosophy," was an older con- 
temporary of Socrates and Democritus^ and cannot, at any rate, 
be set farther back than Anaxagoras and Empedocles. Indeed 
he is presumably somewhat younger than the latter two. Of his 
life we know nearly nothing, and we are even not sure whether 
he was a native of Tarentum or Crotona. Also that he, like 
other Pythagoreans about the end of the fifth century, lived for 
a time in Thebes, is inferred with uncertainty from the passage 
in Plato, Phcedo, 61. Nearly as doubtful is his supposed 
authorship of the fragments that are preserved under his name. 
They have been collated and discussed first by Bockh (Berlin, 
1819). From the investigations of Fr. Preller (article Pliilolaos 
in Ersch und Gruber Encykl, III. 23, 370 f.), V. Kose (De 
Aristotelis librorum ordine et auctoritate, Berlin, 1854), C. Scliaar- 
schmidt (Bonn, 1864), Zeller (Hermes, 1875, p. 175 f.), they may 
he assumed in part to be genuine, but they must be very cau- 
tiously introduced into the discussion of the original number 
theory. 

1 Zeller, I 4 . 761, 843. Compare E. Rhode, VerhandL der Trierer 
Philol.-Versucliungen, 1879, and JalirbiXcher fiir Philologie u. Padagogik, 
1881, 741 f. Diels, Verliandlungen der Stettiner Philologie Vers. 1880. 

2 Arist. Met., I. 5 : iv 8e tovtois kcu npo tovtgov oi KaXovfxevoi HvOayd- 
peioi Toav fxadrjficiTcov a^fapevoi kt\ . 



94 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY. 

Along with Philolaus are mentioned, in Italy Clinias of Taren- 
tum, 1 in Thebes Lycis the teacher of Epaminondas, and Eurytus 
the pupil of Philolaus, a citizen of Crotona or Tarentum. Eury- 
tus in turn had as pupils Xenophilus of Thracian Chalcis, the 
Phliasians Phanto, Echecrates, Diodes, Polymastus. 2 From 
Cyrene Prorus is mentioned. In Athens Plato brought forward 
the two Pythagoreans, Simmias and Cebes, as witnesses of the 
death of Socrates. Almost mythical are the Locrian Timseus 3 
and the Lucanian Ocellus. The philosophic teaching of any of 
these men is not in any way certainly known. With the disso- 
lution of the Pythagorean League in the fourth century the 
school became extinct. The doctrines of the last significant 
personality in it, Archytus of Tarentum, merged, so far as our 
knowledge goes, into those of the older Academy (§ 38). 

A collection of all the Pythagorean fragments is in Mullach ; 
Ritter, Gesch. der pyth. Philos. (Hamburg, 1826) ; Rothen- 
biicher, Das System der Pythagoreen nach den Angaben des 
Aristoteles (Berlin, 1867) ; Alb. Heinze, Die meta. Grundlehren 
der dlteren P. (Leipzig, 1871), Chaignet, Pythagore et la philos. 
Pythagorienne, 2 vols. (Paris, 1873) ; Sobczyk, Das pyth. Sys- 
tem (Leipzig, 1878) ; A Doering, Wandlungen in der pyth. Lehre 
{Arch. f. Gesch. d. Philos., v. 503 f.). 

As to the Pythagorean teaching, only that can be regarded 
as genuine which Plato and Aristotle report, together with the 
concurrent portions of the fragments transmitted in such ques- 
tionable shape. 

In the Pythagorean society mathematical investigations 
were pursued for the first time quite independently, and 
were brought to a high degree of perfection. Detailed 
views concerning the number system, concerning the series 
of odd and even numbers, of prime numbers, of squares, etc., 
were early instituted. It is not improbable that they, 
applying arithmetic to geometry, came to the conception 
embodied in the so-called Pythagorean theorem. Herein 
must they have had a premonition of the real value of 
number-relations in that they represent number as the ruling 

i Jambl. De vita Pyth., 266. 

2 Diog. Laert., VIII. 46. 

3 The writing bearing this name and concerned with the soul of the 
world, usually published in Plato's works, is certainly a later compendium 
of Plato's Timceus. 



EFFORTS TOWARD RECONCILIATION. 95 

principle in space. Their number theory was strengthened 
by the results attained by them in music. Although later 
reports include 1 much that is fabulous and physically 
impossible, there can nevertheless be no doubt that the 
Pythagorean harmonic shows an exact knowledge of those 
simple arithmetical relations (first of all, the string-lengths) 
out of which musical melody arises. To this may be added 
that the regular revolution of the stars, — of which they 
made especially careful observations, and which are indeed 
the standard for all time measurements, — made the world- 
order (kogijlos;) likewise appear to them to be numerically 
determined. From these premises it can be understood 
how some Pythagoreans came therefore to find in numbers 
the permanent essence of things, concerning which essence 
the battle between philosophic theories had taken place. 
On the one hand, numbers might be substituted — since 
they were supposed to be self-existent, unchangeable, and 
self-unitary — for the abstract Being of the Eleatics as a 
principle at least equally available in the explanation of the 
phenomenal world. On the other hand, since Heracleitus 
had found that the only permanent in change was in the or- 
derly forms of the nature process, the relationships of num- 
ber ruling the process of change gave an exacter form to 
this idea. The Pythagorean number-theory attempted to 
determine numerically the permanent relations of cosmic 
life. The Pythagoreans said therefore : All is number, and 
they meant by this that numbers are the determining essence 
of all things.\ Since now these same abstract numbers and 
number-relationships are found in many different things 
and processes, they said also that the numbers are the 
original forms which are copied by the things. 

i Zeller, I*. 317. The observations of the Pythagoreans in the har- 
monic or, as it is called, canonic, were apparently empirically made upon 
the heptachord with strings of different length. That they had no 
theory of oscillation, goes without saying. 



96 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY. 

It is scarcely conceivable that the Pythagoreans came to their 
predilection for mathematics, music, and astronomy through 
metaphysics. The inverse is rather true, that they came from 
such concrete studies, in undertaking to enter upon the solution 
of universal problems, — as Aristotle (Met., I. 5) also suffi- 
ciently indicated by the axj/dfievoi. For their treatment of geom- 
etry and stereometry, and their prevailing arithmetical fondness, 
see Roth (Gesch. unserer abendl. Philos., II. 2), although he on 
this territory accredits indeed too much to the old Pythagoreans. 
Cantor, Vorles. iiber d. Gesch. d. Math., I. 124. 

In order to derive, however, at one and the same time 
the manifoldness and changeableness of individual things 
from number relations, the Pythagoreans gave metaphysical 
meaning to the fundamental opposition which they found 
in the number theory. They declared that the odd and 
the even are respectively identical with the limited and the 
unlimited. 1 As all numbers are composed of the even and the 
odd, all things also combine in themselves fundamental an- 
titheses, and especially that of the limited and the unlim- 
ited. To this Heracleitan fundamental principle there is 
bound this logical consequence, that everything is the rec- 
onciliation of opposites, or a " harmony," — an expression 
which in the mouth of the Pythagoreans has always the 
suggestion of musical investigations^ 

The antithesis, however, acquired among the Pythagore- 
ans in conformity to their later attitude a still more pro- 
nounced value than with Heracleitus. The limited was the 
better, the more valuable to them, as it was to Parmenides. 
Odd numbers are more nearly perfect than even. In this 
way the Pythagorean system got a dualistic cast, which is 
noticeable in all its parts ; but this was theoretically over- 
come by the fact that since the One, the odd-even primi- 
tive number, creates both series from itself, so also all the 

1 The ground of this identification (Simpl. Phys., 105 r. ; compare 
Zeller, I 4 . 322) is artificial in that it was obviously made ad hoc, and is 
no natural product of the number theory. 



EFFORTS TOWARD RECONCILIATION. 97 

antitheses of the cosmic life are in a grand harmonious 
unitvj 

The later Stoic neo-Platonists, i. e. neo-Pythagoreans, tried to 
find in this antithesis that of force and stuff, spirit and matter, 
and they deduced the dyads from the divine monads. Neverthe- 
less, not the slightest suggestion of such a conception can he 
found in the Plato- Aristotelian reports, which would certainly 
have been particularly observant of this point. 

All that we know with any certainty respecting the 
special doctrine of the Pythagoreans as contrasted with 
these general principles reveals their effort to construct, in 
accordance with a scheme of numbers, an harmonic order 
of things in the various fields. For this there served first 
the decimal system, in which every one of the first ten num- 
bers is accorded a special significance, 1 derived from arith- 
metical considerations. The arithmetical mysticism or 
symbolism of the Pythagoreans seems to have consisted in 
bringing into relation with numbers the fundamental ideas 
of various departments of knowledge, and thereby giving 
expression to the relative rank, value, and significance of 
these ideas. 

There is here the suggestion of the ideal thought of an order 
of things permanently determined by the number series; but 
much caprice in oracular symbolizing and parallelizing was 
obviously developed in details. Beside the number ten of cos- 
mic bodies, the series of elements is about as follows (Jambli- 
chus) : (1) point, (2) line, (3) surface, (4) solid, (5) quality, 
(6) soul, (7) reason, etc. ; or, on the other hand, (1) reason as 
located in the brain, (2) sensation in the heart, (3) germination in 
the navel, (4) procreation in genitalibus, etc. Then the virtues, 
like justice, were also designated by numbers. At the same 
time these concepts, which are symbolized by the same number 
in different series, also suggest and are related to one another. 
Thus it came about that the soul was called a square or a 
sphere. Doubtless with this the thought was connected that 

1 In a certain sense the Pythagoreans appear to have regarded the 
development from the One to the Ten as gradual. Arist. Met., XT. 7, 
1072 b. See Zeller, I 4 . 348. 

7 



98 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY. 

different things should be assigned among a decade of gods. If 
one adds that these determinations were given by different 
Pythagoreans differently, it is easily understood why this first 
scheme of a mathematical order of the world ended in an 
unfruitful confusion. 

An approximate representation of the division of the 
different domains to which the Pythagoreans applied, or 
wished to apply, this number theory shows a collection of 
pairs of opposites which were arranged in a parallelism, 
like the original pair. Even here is the sacred number 
ten completed : (1) limited and unlimited ; (2) odd and 
even ; (3) one and many ; (4) right and left ; (5) male 
and female ; (6) rest and motion ; (7) straight and 
crooked; (8) light and darkness; (9) good and evil; 
(10) square and rectangle. This eccentric and in itself 
principleless arrangement 2 shows that the Pythagoreans 
attempted at least an all-round application of their fun- 
damental principle. Alongside their mathematical, meta- 
physical, and physical conceptions, the ethical conceptions 
theoretically find their place ; 2 but in the development, 
nevertheless, the physical interest everywhere outweighs 
the others. 

'While now this completely ontological number system 
of concepts satisfied the Eleatic motif, yet the physics of 
the Pythagoreans was very greatly under the influence of 
Heracleitus, as was also the physics of Parmenides. In the 
theory of the formation of the world, 3 the Pythagoreans 
placed fire in the middle as the original condition of things, 

1 In which always the first-named number is the more nearly perfect. 

2 This beginning of scientific consideration of ethical ideas, of which 
intimations are at hand in the special doctrines, likewise bespeaks a 
later position for the Pythagorean philosophy. 

8 It must remain uncertain whether they also accepted the theory of 
periodic world-formation and destruction. They taught " the great year " 
in the sense that, with the return of the original arrangement of the stars, 
all individual appearances, persons, and experiences would return. 



EFFORTS TOWARD RECONCILIATION. 99 

as the self-determining One, the animating and impelling 
force. Fire drew around itself, however, the unlimited 
(i. e., empty) space, 1 and limited (i. e., formed) it in ever- 
growing dimensions, — a conception which vividly reminds 
us of the Slvt] of Anaxagoras and LeucippusJ 

The most brilliant achievement of the Pythagoreans was 
their astronomy, and in this respect they are far in advance 
of all their contemporaries. They regarded not only the 
world-all as globular, but also the single stars as luminous 
globes, which move around the central fire in transparent 
globular shells, the spheres. Their most important advance 
here is in the fact that the earth likewise was regarded as a 
globe, moving around this same central fire. The older 
Pythagoreans believed that the earth presents always the 
same side to the central fire, so that mankind on the oppo- 
site side never gets sight of the central fire, nor yet of the 
counter-earth {avTiyQodv) that is between the earth and the 
central fire. The counter-earth was conceived, presumably 
in order to complete the number ten. However, mankind 
does get sight of the changing aspects of the moon circling 
outside the earth, as well as of the sun, five planets, and 
heaven of fixed stars. The distance of the spheres from 
the central fire was determined by the Pythagoreans accord- 
ing to simple number relationships. Corresponding to this, 
they assumed that from the revolution of the spheres there 
resulted a melodious musical sound, the so-called harmony 
of the spheres. In this way the orderly revolution of the 
stars became for them the perfect and divine, while the 
terrestrial world, the world under the moon, was repre- 
sented as the changing, changeable, and imperfect. \ Thus 
the Eleatic static world and the Heracleitan changing 
world appear to have been apportioned to different regions 
of the actual worldi 

1 The assumption of the nevov is expressly confirmed by Aristotle, 
Phys., IV. 6, 213 b, 22. 



100 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY. 

Compare Bockh, De Platonis systemate ccelestium globorum 
et de vera indole astronomice Philolaicce (Berlin, 1810) ; G-ruppe, 
Die Kosmischen Systeme der Griechen (Berlin, 1852) ; M. 
Satorius, Die Entwickelung der Astronomie bei den Griechen bis 
Anaxagoras und Empedokles (Breslau, 1883) . 

Furthermore, the shape of the elements among the Pythag- 
oreans is worthy of note. Just as they reduced the space 
forms to number relationships, so they referred the different 
corporeal elements to space forms, by ascribing simple 
stereometric forms to the ultimate constituents of matter : 
the tetrahedron to fire, the cube to earth, the octahedron to 
air, the icosahedron to water, and, finally, the dodecahedron 
to the aether, which was added by them to the fourEmpedo- 
clean elements and conceived as surrounding all the others. 
If one is able to see in. this the result of an interest in crys- 
tallography, nevertheless, on the other hand, also here a fan- 
tastic caprice is only too apparent. 

Although consequently the augury of a mathematical state- 
ment of natural law is the permanent service of the Pythag- 
orean philosophy, yet the form of the statement that was 
advanced J3y them was little suited to further scientific investi- 
gations. |Apart from astronomy, this knowledge of the Pythag- 
oreans, to which some value in empirical investigations may 
be ascribed, stands in no connection with the metaphysical 
number theory, and has come from such Pythagoreans, who 
were little, if at all, interested in the number theory (§ 25) J 



4. The Greek Enlightenment. 

the sophists and socrates. 

25. After the rapid development in which Greek science 
at the first onset defined a number of valuable and funda- 
mental concepts concerning nature, a kind of reaction began 
about the middle of the fifth century. The metaphysical 
tendency of thought declined. Of hypotheses there were 



THE GREEK ENLIGHTENMENT. 101 

already many enough, and it seemed more important to test 
and verify them in application to special kinds of knowledge. 

The lively exchange between the different schools led 
easily to a blending of principles, which thereby lost their 
harshness, but unfortunately their force as well. The 
more the circles of scientific activity increased, the more the 
interest turned to the single problems of science. There 
began an epoch of eclecticism and detailed investigation. 

The after-effects of the Milesian researches are met not 
only among the younger physicists, who regarded the cos- 
mic matter as a compromise between air and water or 
between fire and air, but also, in a man like Idceus of 
Himera, who agreed with Anaximenes in maintaining that 
the air was the ap^f)- 1 A full adaptation, however, of the 
Milesian teaching to the position of science, in its attempts 
at compromise, appears in by far the most important of 
these eclectics, Diogenes of Apollonia. 

Nothing is known about his life. It is even doubtful, on 
account of the Ionian dialect of his writing, irepl Screws (see 
G. Geil, Philos. Monatsheften, XXVI. 257 f .), if the place of his 
birth was the Apollonia in Crete. Schorn and Panzerbieter have 
collected the fragments, — Schorn (Bonn, 1829, with those of 
Anaxagoras) and Panzerbieter (Leipzig, 1830, Diog. Apollonia). 
See Steinhart's article in the Encyklopadie of Erschand Gruber. 
Schleiermacher, who in his treatise concerning Diogenes (Com- 
plete Works, III. 2, 149 ff.) at first placed him very high 
and chronologically early, came later ( Vorles. ilber Gesch. der 
Philos., Complete Works, III. 4 a, 77) to view him as a prin- 
cipleless eclectic. Zeller agrees with this last conception 
(I 4 . 248 f.). D. Weygoldt (Arch. f. Gesch. d. Philos., I. 161 f.) 
has identified some teachings of Diogenes in some pseudo 
writings of Hippocrates. 

Diogenes anticipated his later point of view in the desire, 
expressed in the beginning of his writing, for an unambigu- 
ous starting-point and a simple and worthy investigation. 
The hylozoistic monism of the Milesians formed for him 
1 Sext. Emp. Adv. math., IX. 360. 



102 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY. 

this starting-point, which he defended 1 against pluralistic 
theories (Anaxagoras and Empedocles) by the subtle con- 
ception that the process of Becoming, the change of things 
into one another and their reciprocal influence, are expli- 
cable only by the presupposition of a common fundamental 
essence, of which all particular things are shifting transfor- 
mations (iTepoioocreLs). The constitutive characteristics, 
however, of the apxn he regarded on the one hand, like the 
Ionians, as motion and animation, and on the other, in ap- 
parent agreement with Anaxagoras, as reasonableness and 
purposiveness which are manifested in the proportionate 
distribution of matter in the universe. So he accepted in 
the list of predicates of the Air of Anaximenes those also 
of the Anaxagorean z/o0?, and called 2 this air-spirit a crw/xa 
/xeya /cal la^vpbv ical athiov re /cal aOdvarov ical TroWa el86s. 
The air, likewise called irvevjjba, as being the medium of life 
and of thought, is the uniform and universal reality, both in 
the microcosm and in the macrocosm. Through condensa- 
tion and rarefaction, which were respectively (compare 
§ 16) identified with cooling and warming, the cosmic 
matter changed into individual things. Through the effect 
of weight, which drove the rarer above and the more con- 
densed below, there were completed the order and motion of 
the world-all, which was conceived to be in a periodic alter- 
nation of origination and destruction. In the organism the 
air serves as the soul. The soul is denied to plants, and in 
animals it is found in the blood (after Empedocles). Life 
depends upon the blood receiving the air, upon the mixing 
of which the mental condition of the organism depends. 
With a just presentiment Diogenes pointed out the distinc- 
tion between the arterial and venous blood. Moreover, his 
valuable knowledge of the arterial system, his idea of the 
brain as the seat of thought, his theories of the origin of . 
sense perception, as well as his numerous other physiologi- 
1 Simpl. Phys., 32 verso, 151, 30. 2 Ibid., 33 recto, 153, 17. 



THE GREEK ENLIGHTENMENT. 103 

cal and biological observations, show a fine, accurate sense 
for detailed research in the organic world. 

Inversely, there is an approximation to Ionian hylozoism 
— as it presented itself among the Eleatics to Melissus — 
in the only pupil of Anaxagoras of whom anything definite 
is known. This is Archelaus of Athens or Miletus, who 
identified with the air the original mixture of all the 
•^prj^ara of Anaxagoras, and associated the vovs essentially 
with the air (§ 26), similarly to Diogenes, only in a more 
mechanical way. 

In Ephesus, on the other hand, a school continued to exist 
which actively held to the teaching of Heracleitus. It did 
not lessen the paradoxes of Heracleitus, but appears to have 
exaggerated them in so enthusiastic and unmethodical a 
manner that Plato made sport 1 of them. At least it is 
reported 2 that Cratylus, the most important of these Hera- 
cleitans and a younger contemporary of Socrates, the teacher 
of Plato, so subtilized the Heracleitan proposition concern- 
ing the inability of stepping into the same river twice, as to 
postulate the impossibility of stepping in even once. 

Antiquity 3 associated with Heracleitus a movement de- 
veloped within the Pythagorean circle, whose leader was 
Hippasus of Metapontum, approximately a contemporary of 
Philolaus. He emphasized the Heracleitan moment in the 
Pythagorean physics so exclusively that fire was for him 
entirely the apxn m * ne Ionian sense. The old tradition i 
designated him as the head of the exoteric Acousmatics, 
who were not initiated into the secrets of the number 
theory. 

On the other hand, Ecphantus, and similarly perhaps 

1 T/iecet., 179 e. In the same feeling is the entire dialogue of 
Cratylus written. 

2 Arist. Met., III. 5, 1010 a, 12. 

3 Ibid., I. 3, 984 a, 7. 

4 Jamblichus, De vit. Pyth., 81. 



104 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY. 

Xuthus, 1 joined the Pythagorean teaching to atomism, to 
which the transition appears to have been made in the ste- 
reometrical construction of the elements as attempted by 
the Pythagoreans. Likewise in Ecphantus we find simi- 
larities to the vow theory of Anaxagoras. 2 The atoms, 
differing in size, form, and force, are so moved by the vov? 
that out of them the unitary spherical shape of the world 
is perfectly formed and maintained. 

While such adjustments and compromises between the 
metaphysical theories were being attempted, the special in- 
terest of this period was in detailed investigation. This 
developed vigorously in all domains, and in its progress spe- 
cial departments of science even then were differentiating 
themselves from general philosophy. Mathematics 3 was 
the first to proceed independently ; not only in the Pythag- 
orean school, but among other thinkers (Anaxagoras, and 
later Plato and Democritus), it found recognition and pro- 
motion. The trisection of an angle, the squaring of the 
circle, the doubling of the cube, were the pet problems of 
the time. A certain Hippocrates of Chios wrote the first 
manual of mathematics, and introduced the method of des- 
ignating figures by letters. There was wanting, it is true, 
a logical development of the art of demonstration. How- 
ever, a considerable amount of knowledge was accumulated, 
which was obtained in an empirical way, partly experi- 
mental and partly tentative. 

Brilliant progress in astronomy 4 was made in the fifth 
and in the beginning of the fourth century, particularly by 
the Pythagoreans. Whether it were experience (the cir- 
cumnavigating of Africa ?) or theoretic reflection upon the 

1 Compare Zeller, I*. 405, 1. 

2 Details by Zeller, I 4 . 458 f. 

3 Cantor, Vorles. uber d. Gesch. d. Math., I. 160 f., 171f. 

4 Compare O. Gruppe, Die kosmischen Systeme d. Gi'iechen, Berlin, 
1851. 



THE GREEK ENLIGHTENMENT. 105 

problems that led to the hypotheses of the central fire and 
the counter-earth, gradually the theory of the diurnal 
movement of the earth around the central fire, which alone 
could explain the apparent rotation of the heavens, was 
superseded by the theory of the revolution of the earth 
upon its axis. Hicetas of Syracuse appears to have been 
the founder of this theory. He was certainly younger 
than Philolaus, and perhaps a participant in that last 
phase of Pythagoreanism, as it merged in the Academy 1 
(§38). 

About this time, in other departments of natural science, 
a richer, more exact treatment of individual facts took the 
place of ultimate hypotheses. Here appeared a wonderful 
revolution, when interest in meteorological observations be- 
gan to give place to interest in the investigation of the 
organic world, and of man in particular. 

Typical in this respect appears Hippo 2 (of Samos ?), a 
naturalist of the time of Pericles, who, inasmuch as he 
postulated the moist as apxv* is usually mentioned in 
connection with Thales; so also Cleidemus, 4 in whose 

1 Here, as for the following, we may refer once for all to the Geschichte 
der Mathematik, Naturwissenschqft und Medizin in Alterlum, appearing 
in this same volume of the German edition. This special treatment 
allows us to make only a brief sketch of these subjects, and to lay the 
emphasis upon the distinctively philosophical movement. 

2 Compare Schleiermacher, Ueber den Philosophen Nippon, Complete 
Works, Vol. III. p. 408 f . ; Uhrig, Be Hippone atheo (Giessen, 1848). 

8 With special emphasis upon the moist character of animal seed, 
Arist. De an., I. 2. This explains the one supposition of Aristotle con- 
cerning the origin of the teaching of Thales (see § 14). If the charge of 
Atheism which was made against Hippo refers to the fact that he did 
not recognize anything as imperishable, and declared that nothing exists 
except phenomena (schol. in Arist., 534 a, 22), he was, in spite of his 
moist apxr), a purely positive anti-metaphysician. This explains Aris- 
totle's prejudice against him ((popriKarepos, De an., I. 2; evreXeia ttjs 
biavoiat, Met., I. 3). 

4 Zeller, I 4 . 927. 



106 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY. 

researches into the physiology of sensation we find sug- 
gestions of Anaxagoras. 

Medicine also could not hold itself apart from the influ- 
ence of the general body of science, and it appeared for a 
time as if it would be entirely absorbed into the speculations 
of natural philosophy. The impulse thereto arose from the 
Pythagorean circles, and is principally traced back to 
Alcmaeon, 1 a physician in Crotona, and perhaps a some- 
what older contemporary of Philolaus. He stood aloof 
from the number theory, but in common with its adher- 
ents held to the doctrine of antitheses. 2 He also believed 
in the fundamental opposition of the terrestrial imper- 
fection and the celestial perfection, which dualism he, 
like Philolaus, appears to have developed astronomically. 
His medical views depended upon the universal Pythago- 
rean-Heracleitan presuppositions, since he defined health 
as the harmony of opposing forces. Specifically, there 
were supposed to be fundamental humors whose homo- 
geneous mixing indicated health, while an excess or defi- 
ciency of any one of them led to pathological conditions. 
Such aetiological theories did not, however, prevent Alc- 
maeon from making careful and valuable investigations. 
He is said to be the first to make sections ; he appears 
to have been the first to locate thought in the brain, and 
to designate the nerves as canals leading thither from 
the sense-organs. Connected with this — for him as well 
as later for Democritus and Plato — was the fact that 
lie in an Eleatic-Heracleitan fashion opposed thought to 
perception. 

As a type of the temporary amalgamation of medicine 
and natural philosophy, we may take 3 the pseud o-Hippo- 

1 Unna, De Alcmceone Crotoniata ej usque fragmentis, found in Peter- 
sen's Phil. list. Stud. 1832 ; R, Hirzel, Hermes, 1876, p. 240 f. 

2 Arist. Met., T. 5, 986 a, 27. 

3 Compare Siebeck, Gesch. der Psychol, I. 1, 94 f. 



THE GREEK ENLIGHTENMENT. 107 

cratic work irepl Sta/r^, which has been proved 2 by Zeller 
(1. 663 f., against Schuster, ITeraclitus, 99f., and Teichmiiller, 
Neue Studien, I. 249 1, II. 6 f.) to belong to the time after 
Empedocles and Anaxagoras and before Plato. This writ- 
ing pictures in the microcosm of the human body, as well 
as in the universe, now a constructive and now a destruc- 
tive battle between fire and water, and it ascribes motion 
to fire and nourishing power to water. The theory is then 
carried out in detail, and deviates into a medical psychology 
which regards the soul as a mixed essence corresponding 
in miniature to the body. 

The merit of Hippocrates (460-377) 2 was that he de- 
fended the independence of medicine against such nature- 
philosophical tendencies, which he contested principally 
irepl ap^alrj^ IrjTpLfcrjs. He separated medicine as a re^vr/ 
from philosophy in a purely Greek fashion as the art of 
restoring to the body its beauty lost through disease. On 
the other hand, Hippocrates {irepl Stalrr)? dgecov) also re- 
jected the purely symptomatic method that was in vogue 
in the Cnidian school. He urged that the determination 
of the empirical causes of disease was to be attained by a 
comprehensive and careful observation of the alrlao ; 3 and 
in this he found a successor in Diodes of Carystus. He 
distinguished causes dependent on external events, like cli- 
mate, seasons, etc., from those subject to the human will, 
like the diet. Remoter causes are distinguished from the 
more immediate, but always investigation is limited to 
experience, and only immanent, not transcendent, setiolo- 

1 Compare Weygoldt, Jahrb.f. Id. PMloL, 1882, 161 f. 

2 The mass of writings passing under the name of Hippocrates 
are published by Kiihn and by Littre, and the latter ha-s made a French 
translation. Only a small portion of these writings belongs to Hip- 
pocrates, and this portion contains several very difficult problems of 
detail. J. Ilberg, Stud la Pseud ippocrafea (Leipzig, 1883). 

3 See C. Goring, Ueber den Begriff d. Ursache in d. griech. Philos. 
(Leipzig, 1874). 



108 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY. 

gies are sought. As with Alcmseon, the mixture of the 
four fundamental humors — the blood, phlegm, yellow gall, 
and black gall — formed likewise the central point of this 
medical theory. Besides this the school of Hippocrates de- 
veloped an accurate knowledge of anatomy and physiology. 
In the former branch the knowledge of the brain and ner- 
vous system, and especially, even thus early, of the particu- 
lar sense nerves, is to be particularly noted ; and concerning 
the latter is the theory of the efifarov Oepiiov, wherein the 
cause of life was sought. The bearer of life, however, was 
held to be the irvevixa^ which is a material wafted like air 
through the veins. 1 This is an hypothesis which, like 
similar teachings of Diogenes of Apollonia, seemed to rest 
upon a presentiment of the importance of oxygen. 

Historical research also, like that of natural science, 
acquired at the end of the fifth century not only greater 
extent and more manifold form, 2 but also a positive and 
scientific method. While in Herodotus the naturalistic 
narrative was still interwoven with myth and saga, and 
the realistic conception was still permeated with elements 
of the old faith, the stripping off of the mythical appears 
to have been perfected in Thucydides, whose mastery of 
psychological motivation was determined entirely by the 
spirit of his time, the Attic Enlightenment. 

26. But with this internal process of transformation 
there went on also in the second half of the fifth century a 
great change in the external relations of Greek science. 
There was here, too, a powerful influence in the mighty 
development of the national life which had dawned upon 

1 See H. Siebeck, Die Entwickelung der Lehre vom Geist {irvevyLa) in 
der antiken Wissenschaft : Zeitsclirift fur Volkerspsychologie, 1881, p. 
364 £. Compare with his Gesch. der Psychologies I. 2, p. 730 f . 

2 Logography developed into histories of localities (Xanthus of 
Sardis and Hippasus of Rhegium, the Lydian and Sicilian histories) ; 
then (§ 11), into fuller expositions by Charo of Lampsacus, Hellanicus 
of Mitylene, Damastes, etc. 



THE GREEK ENLIGHTENMENT 109 

Greece during the Persian wars. The glorious struggle 
for existence which the Greeks made against the Asiatic 
ascendancy had strained the powers of the people to the 
utmost, and had brought all their possibilities to their 
richest unfolding. The most valuable prize of the victory 
was that impulse for a national unity of mental life, out of 
which the great creations of Hellenic culture proceeded. 
Science was involved in this movement. Science was 
drawn out of the silent circles of the select societies in 
which it had until then been nurtured. On the one hand, it 
entered with its discoveries and invention's into the service 
of practical life j 1 on the other hand, its doctrines, and par- 
ticularly its transformation of religious views, were brought 
through poetry to the apprehension of the common mind. 

The view of nature in iEschylus, Sophocles, Pindar, and 
Simonides appears on the whole in a similar setting as in the 
Gnomic poets. Direct allusions to philosophy are found first in 
Euripides (compare especially E. Kohler, Die JPhilosophie des 
Eurijndes, I. ; Anaxagoras und E., Btickeburg, 1873), and in 
Epicharmus, who stood near to the Pythagoreans, but also seems 
to have been familiar with the other philosophic teachings of 
his time. (Compare Leop. Schmidt, Qucestiones Epicharmece, 
Bonn, 1846 ; Zeller, I 4 . 460 f.) " The divestiture of nature of 
its gods by science" pressed always further to an ethical alle- 
gorizing of the gods (Metrodorus of Lampsacus ; compare § 11). 
This permitted, on the other hand, the comedy (of Epichar- 
mus, Cratinus, Eupolis) to outdo the anthropomorphism, which 
had been for good and all outgrown, even to the extent of witty 
persiflage of their divinities. The weaker faith appeared, the 
greater seemed the need of supplying its place by knowledge. 

Amid such increased intellectual activity there arose in 
all Greece in the fifth century an impulse for education, aris- 

1 An example may be found in the architecture of Hippodamus of 
Miletus, whose connection with the Pythagoreans is indeed very doubt- 
ful. His magnificent buildings, however, in the Piraeus, Thurii, and 
Rhodes, and the entire development of architecture, presuppose a high 
degree of development in mechanics and technology. Compare K. x) . 
Hermann, D. H. Milesio (Marburg, 1841). 



110 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY. 

ing out of need, curiosity, and wonder. Everybody desired 
to know what the schools had developed through research 
and reflection concerning the nature of things. To such 
questioning a ready answer was speedily forthcoming. 
There were men who engaged to reveal the results of 
science to the people. Philosophy stepped out of the 
school and forth upon the mart. 1 These public teachers 
of science were the Sophists. 

That the Sophists converted science into a trade is one of the 
chief and heaviest charges which Socrates, 2 Plato, 3 and Aris- 
totle 4 raised against them ; these three thought the dignity of 
science as a disinterested research was impaired in this way by 
the Sophists. If we cannot agree 5 with this judgment from a 
modern point of view, yet the fact is nevertheless to be recog- 
nized that when science was taught for pay, it assumed an en- 
tirely new social position ; and this is the essential fact in the 
whole matter. 

This movement showed itself first of all in Athens. 
Here, in the middle of the fifth century, the intellectual life 
of Greece was concentrated, had attained its highest efflo- 
rescence, and had gained its political power and commer- 
cial supremacy. Science, like art, crowded into this 7% 
( EWd8os to irpvravelov tt}? crocfrias. Here the need of cul- 
ture developed most actively among the lesser citizens, here 
learning began to have political and social power, and 
here the supremacy of culture was personified in Pericles. 
Thus in science also Athens absorbed into itself the scat- 
tered beginnings of Greek civilization. 

Anaxagoras had lived for a long time in Athens. Par- 
menides and Zeno probably visited Athens, and Heracleitanism 
was represented there by Cratylus. All important Sophists 

1 See Windelband, Praeludien, p. 56 f. 

2 Xen. Mem., I. 6. 
8 Gorg., 420 c. 

4 Eth. Nik., IX. 1, 1164 a, 24. 

5 See Grote, Hist, of Gr., VIII. 493 f. ; Zeller, I 4 . 971 f. 



THE GREEK ENLIGHTENMENT. Ill 

sought and found here honor and glory. With them began 
the Attic period of ancient philosophy, its most magnificent 
period. 

The Sophists are, accordingly, first and foremost the 
bearers of the Greek Enlightenment. The period of their 
activity is that of the expansion of scientific culture. With 
less ability in independent creation, the Sophists devoted 
their energies to revising and popularizing existing theories. 
Their work was first directed, with an eye to the people's 
needs, to imparting to the mass of people the results of 
science. Therein lay, along with their justification, also 
the danger to which the Sophists succumbed. 

%o<f>i<TTr)s meant originally "a man of science" in general. 
Then, as Protagoras 1 claimed for himself, it meant " a teacher 
of science " and of political virtue ; later, expressly, a paid 
teacher of rhetoric (see below). The opprobrium attached to 
the word Sophist at present is due to the polemics of Socrates, 
Plato, and Aristotle, which have unfavorably dominated history in 
its judgment of the Sophists, until Hegel (Complete Works, Vol. 
XIV. 5 f .) made prominent the legitimate moment of their work. 
Since then, this has attained a complete recognition (Brandis, 
Hermann, 2 Zeller, Ueberweg-Heinze) , but on the other hand 
has been exaggeratedly emphasized by Grote (History of Greece, 
VIII. 474 f.). Compare Jae. Geel, Historia critica sophistarum 
(Utrecht, 1823) ; M. Schanz, Die Sophisten (Gottingen, 1867) ; 
A. Chiapelli, Per la storia delta sophistica greca (Arch. f. 
GescJi. d. Ph., III. ) ; the fragments in Mullach, II. 130 f. 

The difference between the earlier and later Sophists (Ueber- 
weg) is well founded, since in the nature of the case at the be- 
ginning the serious and legitimate aspects of the movement 
were more prominent, while later on appeared the vagaries of 
the members and the menace of their doctrines to society. 
This development was so necessary, the consequences were so 
certainly determined by the precedents, and this distinction is 
on that account only so relative, that it, particularly for a brief 
presentation, will not be adopted as a basis of subdivision. 

Plato's dialogue Protagoras gives in its clear characteriza- 
tion of the principal personages an exceptionally vivid pic- 

1 Plato, Protag., 318 d. 

2 Hermann, Gesch. u. Syst. d. plat. Philos., I. 179 f., 296 f. 



112 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY. 

ture of the entire movement of the Sophists. In spite of the 
general polemic character of this work, the better aspects 
of Sophism are not entirely obscured. The most derogatory 
characterization of the Sophists is given in the dialogue Sophist 
transmitted under Plato's name. The Aristotelian conclusions 
agree with this dialogue in the main (Met., III. 5 ; VII. 3). 
The worst is the definition 7repl aocf>. eAey^. I. 165 a, 21 ; co-n 
yap r) a-ocfaarriKT] cfxiivo/xivT) crocpia ovcra 8' ov * kcu 6 aocpLo-Trjs 
XprjfJLaTKTTTjs dirb cpawofievr)*; cro<£tas aAA' ovk ov<rr)<;. 

The popularizing tendency of Sophistry found an emi- 
nent representative in Hippias of Elis. A brilliant poly- 
histor, he dazzled his contemporaries in all sorts of 
mathematical, zoological, historical, and grammatical learn- 
ing. At the same time, however, as the dialogue Hippias 
Major shows, he aimed by his somewhat colorless moral 
teaching to achieve a cheap success with the masses. It 
was very much the same with Prodicus of Iulis on the 
island of Ceos, of whose shallow ethics an example is 
preserved in the well-known Heracles at the Cross Ways. 1 
The strength of Prodicus lay in synonymy. 

See L. Spengel, Swaywy?) rexyw (Stuttgart, 1828) ; J. Mahly, 
Die Sophist Hippias von Elis (Rheinisches Museum, 1860 f.) ; 
F. G-. Welcker, Prodikas der Vor ganger des Socrates (in a 
smaller work, II. 893 f.). Both were about of an age, and 
somewhat younger than Protagoras. Nothing further is known 
concerning their lives. Hippias, who prided himself on his 
memory and his great learning, was pictured as one of the 
most conceited Sophists. Prodicus was treated by Plato with 
playful irony on account of his pedantic pains in word-splitting. 
For Socrates' relation to him, see § 27. 

The instruction that the Sophists were called upon to 
give had to adapt itself to a specific purpose. Democracy 
had gained ascendency in Athens and most other cities, and 
the citizen was brought by duty and inclination into active 
participation in public affairs. This evinced itself particu- 
larly in oratory. With the higher culture of the masses, 

1 Hermann, Gesch. u. Syst. d. plat. Philos., I. 179 f., 296 f. 



THE GREEK ENLIGHTENMENT. 113 

the greater were the demands upon those who by the 
power of the spoken word wished to win influence in the 
state. The youth who attended upon the teaching of 
the Sophist desired to be trained by him into a cultured 
and eloquent citizen of the state. So the Sophists found 
their chief task in scientific and rhetorical instruction for 
public life. The instruction consisted on the one hand in 
technical and formal oratory, and on the other in that 
learning which appeared especially important for any par- 
ticular end they had in view. Therein lay not only the 
social-historical significance of the Sophists, but also the 
tendency of all the independent investigations through 
which the Sophists have furthered science. Gorgias of 
Leontini and Protagoras of Abdera may be regarded the 
most eminent representatives of this phase of Sophism. 

For the characterization and criticism of Sophism as a tech- 
nique of education in statecraft, one ought to consult especially 
Plato's dialogue, Gorgias. Concerning the relation of the 
Sophists to rhetoric, see Fr. Blass, Die attische Beredsamkeit 
von Gorgias bis Lysias (Leipzig, 1868). As a typical expres- 
sion of these attempts of the Sophists which embraced also 
legal oratory, may be taken the utterance of Protagoras that 
he would pledge himself to 1 t6v yrroi Xoyov KpctTTOi 7rotetv, — an 
expression, to be sure, which called forth the crushing criticism 
of Aristophanes, who in the Clouds imputed it to Socrates. 

A more reliable fact about the life of Gorgias is that he was 
in Athens in 427 as head of the embassy from his native city 
(Thucyd., III. 86). His life has been set by Frei (Bh. Mus., 
1850, 1851) in the time from 483 to 375. He made a great 
impression in Athens by his eloquence, and exercised a 
distinct influence upon the development of rhetorical style. 
He spent his protracted old age in Larissa in Thessaly. The 
genuineness of both of his preserved declamations (ed. Blass, 
Leipzig, 1881) is doubtful. His philosophical treatise bore 
the title ircpi <£ixr«u9 r} 7rept rov fxr] ovtos (see below) . His con- 
nection with the Sicilian school of oratory (Corax and Tisias), 
and therefore also with Empedocles, is undoubted. His con- 
nection with the Eleatics appears equally certain, from the argu- 

i Arist. Rhet., II. 24; 1402 a, 23. 
8 



114 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY. 

mentation in his writings. Compare H. E. Foss, De Gr. L. 
(Halle, 1828) ; H. Diels, Gorgias und Empedocles (Berichte der 
Berliner Akademie). 

Alcidamus of Elea, Folus 1 of Agrigentum, Lycophron, and 
Protarchus 2 are named as pupils of Gorgias. 

Protagoras, doubtless the most important of the Sophists, 
was born in Abdera in 480 or somewhat earlier. It can be 
assumed that he was not distant in his views from the school of 
Atomists in that city. Considerably younger than Leucippus, 
and about twenty years older than Democritus, he formed the 
natural connection between the two (see §§ 23, 31). With 
keen insight into the needs of the time, and much admired as a 
teacher of wisdom, he was one of the first to make an extended 
tour of the Grecian cities. He was in Athens many times. 
In 411, and during the rule of the four hundred, he was there 
for the last time, and was accused of atheism. He was con- 
demned, and upon his flight to Sicily was drowned. The titles 
(Diog. Laert., IX. 55) of his numerous writings, only a very 
few of which are preserved, prove that he dealt with the most 
varied subjects in the domain of theory and practice. Com- 
pare J. Frei, Qucestiones Protagorem (Bonn, 1845) ; A. J. Vi- 
tringa, De Prot. vita et pliilos. (Groniugen, 1851). Lately 
Th. Gompertz {Vienna Session Reports, 1890) has identified a 
Sophistic speech with the Apology of Medicine in the pseudo- 
Hippocratic writing, irepl re^v?/?, and has noted its not fully 
undoubted connection with the teaching of Protagoras. 

Antimserus of Mende, Archagoras, Euathlus, 3 Theodoras the 
mathematician, and in a wider sense Xeniades of Corinth also 
are to be regarded as pupils of Protagoras. Eminent citizens of 
Athens, like Critias, probably Callicles, or poets like Evenus 
of Paros, etc., stood in a less intimate connection with the 
Sophists. 

The practical and political aim of their instruction com- 
pelled the Sophists to turn aside from independent nature 
study and metaphysical speculation, and to content them- 
selves with the presentation, in popular form, of such the- 
ories only when they were called for or appeared effective. 4 

1 Plato, Gorg. 2 Plato, Phileb. 

3 Plato, Thecetetus. 

4 Many, like Gorgias, rejected this as perfectly worthless. See Plato, 
Meno, 95 c. 



THE GREEK ENLIGHTENMENT. 115 

The peculiar task in teaching men how to persuade drove 
them, on the other hand, to interest themselves more thor- 
oughly in man, especially on his psychological side. Who- 
ever endeavors to influence man by speech must know 
something of the genesis and development of his ideas and 
volitions. While earlier science with naive devotion to 
the outer world had coined fundamental concepts for its 
knowledge of nature, Sophistry, so far as it adopted the 
methods of science, turned to inner experience, and com- 
pleted the incomplete earlier philosophy by studying the 
mental life of man. In this essentially anthropological 
tendency, sophistry turned philosophy on the road to 
subjectivism. 1 

This new kind of work began first with language. The 
efforts of Prodicus in synonymy, those of Hippias in 
grammar, were in this direction. Protagoras was especially 
fruitful in this respect. Persuaded that theory without 
practice was as little useful as practice 2 without theory, he 
connected the practical teaching, to which Gorgias seems 
to have limited himself, with philological investigations. 
He concerned himself with the right use of words, 3 in their 
genders, tenses, modes, 4 etc. 

Compare Lersch, Die SpracJipJiilos. deralten. 1. 15 f. ; Alberti, 
Die SprachpJiilos. vor Platon (Philol., 1856) ; Prantl, GescJi. der 
LogiJc, I. 14 f. 

Similar small beginnings in logic appeared, in addition 
to those in grammar. That teachers of oratory should 

1 What Cicero (Tusc, V. 4, 10) said of Socrates, that he called 
philosophy down from heaven into the cities and houses, is equally 
true for the entire Greek Enlightenment, for the Sophists as well as for 
him. 

2 Stobseus Florilegium, 29, 80. 
8 Plato, Phcedr., 267 c. 

4 Diog. Laert., IX. 53, in which he distinguished t^coA^, epcbrrjo-is, 
dnoxprjo-is, and evTokrj. 



116 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY. 

reflect how a thing was to be proved and controverted, is 
obvious. It is also easily credible (Diog. Laert., IX. 51 f.) 
that Protagoras had his attention drawn to the nature of 
contradictory propositions, and was the first to teach the 
method of proof (ra? irpb<; -ra? 6e<reis eiri^eiprjaei^). Appar- 
ently formal logic sprang up here as an art of argumen- 
tation, proof, and contradiction. Of how far it was 
developed in details by the Sophists, we unfortunately 
know absolutely nothing. 1 

We are better informed concerning their general view 
of human knowledge. The less the Sophist championed 
earlier metaphysical and physical learning, and the more 
he entertained his hearers by his clever opposition to it, 
and the more vividly again instruction presented to the 
consciousness of the rhetorician the possibility of proving 
different things of the same object, so much the more con- 
ceivable is it that these men lost faith in any universally 
valid truth or in the possibility of any certain knowledge. 
Their preoccupation with the theory of knowledge led, as 
things were, by a psychological necessity to skepticism. 

This skepticism is the theoretical centre of Sophistry. That 
this degenerated among the younger Sophists into frivolous 
argumentation should not lead to the misconception of the 
scientific seriousness with which the negative epistemology was 
developed, especially by Protagoras. On the other hand, it 
was an unhistoric interpretation for those in modern time, fol- 
lowing Grote's example, to celebrate Protagoras as the founder 
of Positivism : E. Laas, Idealismus und Positivismus, I. 
(Berlin, 1880) var. loc. ; W. Halbfass, Die Bericlite des Platon 
u. Aristoteles ilber Protagoras (Strassburg, 1882). Opposed to 

1 That the Aristotelian logic was not without precedents, literary or 
in the form of practical exercise, may be taken a priori as extremely 
probable. How far these precedents reached cannot be determined 
from the very few indications from extant literature (see particularly 
Plato's (?) dialogue Sophist). This lack of evidence is one of the most 
regrettable deficiencies in the history of Greek science. Compare 
Prantl, Gesch. d. Log., I. 11 f. 



THE GREEK ENLIGHTENMENT. 117 

this is P. Natorp, Forschungen zu Gesch. cles Erkcnntnissprob- 
lems, p. 1 f., 149 f. Compare Fr. Sattig, Der Protagoreische 
Sensualismus in Zeitschr. f. Philos. (1885 f.). The chief 
source for the epistemology of Protagoras is Plato's dialogue, 
Thecetetus. Yet it is a question how far the presentation 
developed in this may be referred to Protagoras himself. The 
teaching of Gorgias is in part preserved in the pseudo-Aristo- 
telian De Melisso, Zenone, Gorgia, c. 5 and 6 (§ 17) ; and 
in part in Sext. Emp. Adv. math., VII. 65. 



In order to establish his skeptical belief about human 
knowledge, Protagoras made the eternal flux of Hera- 
cleitus his point of departure. But he emphasized still 
more than Heracleitus the correlation, in which every 
single thing does not so much exist, as momentarily come 
into existence, through its relation to other things. From 
the disavowal of absolute Being it followed that qualities 
of things arise only out of the temporary effect of things on 
one another. Quality is the product of motion, 1 and in- 
deed, as Protagoras in a purely Heracleitan manner set 
forth, always of two corresponding motions but in opposite 
directions. One of these was designated as activity, the 
other as passivity. 2 It follows that in general it can never 
be said what a thing is, but at most what it becomes in its 
changing relation to other things, 3 and the Protagorean cor- 
relativeness contained a still greater significance in apply- 
ing this general theory of motion to the theory of human 
perception. Whenever a thing affects one of our senses, 

1 It is not clear from the Thecetetus whether and how Protagoras 
discussed the substratum of the idvrjcris. Even if he did not with 
Heracleitus deny it, yet he regarded it at any rate as incognizable. It 
is conceivable that the Abderite Protagoras developed this theory in 
compliance to the demands of Atomism, in which shape Democritus 
later received it (§ 32). 

2 Thecet., 156 f. 

3 Similarly the skeptical statements of Xeniades appear to have been 
conceived. Compare Zeller, I 4 . 988. 



118 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY. 

in which the motion proceeding x from the object meets a 
reacting motion of the organ, there then arises in the sense 
organ the perceptual image, 2 and simultaneously in the 
thing, the quality corresponding 3 to the image. Therefore 
every perception teaches only how the thing appears in the 
moment of perception for the perceiver, and indeed for him 
alone. Now for Protagoras, sense perception was regarded 
as the only source of knowledge and of the entire mental 
life. 4 Therefore there was for him no insight into the Being 
of things over and above those relations ; no idea of what 
things might be in themselves abstracted from perceptual 
relations. Rather is everything for each individual 5 just 
what it appears to him ; but it is such only to that indi- 
vidual, and, more exactly, only for his momentary state of 
perception. The well-known statement 6 has this meaning : 
irdvToov xprjfidToov ixerpov avdpcowos, tcqv /lev ovrcov ft>? eari, 

TOiV Se fJ,7) OVTCOV ft)? OV/C 60TTIV. 

1 The ability of the different objects to influence the different sense 
organs appears already to have led Protagoras to his theory of the 
different velocities of movements of the objects. See Thecet., 156 c. 
With this reduction of the qualitative to the quantitative, Protagoras 
stood entirely in the school of the Atomists (§§ 23 and 32). 

2 Under this term the sensations and also the feelings are classified in 
the Thecetetus (156). 

3 That the aiadrjTov in reality arises with the aladrjo-is, is an addition 
presumably of those who had extended and applied the theory of the 
Abderite (according to the Thecetetus). For such an assertion carries 
one far beyond the bounds of skepticism. This cannot apply to 
Democritus. 

4 Whether and how Protagoras has proved and explained this view 
(prjbev elvai ttjv ^xty napa ras alardrjaeis, Diog. Laert., IX. 51) is not 
known. In the light of the earlier Rationalism (§§ 18-23) this sensa- 
tionalism seems somewhat unwarranted. It is presaged in the physio- 
logical psychology of the later nature philosophy (§ 25). 

5 The explanation of Thecetetus (152 a) does not permit the avdpconos 
in this well-known sentence to refer to the genus. See Arist. Met., X. 6, 
1062 b, 13. 

6 Thecetetus, 152 a; Sext. Emp. Adv. math., VII. 60. 



THE GREEK ENLIGHTENMENT. 119 

As Protagoras based his philosophy upon that of Hera- 
cleitus, so Gorgias founded his upon that of the Eleatics. 
The former had concluded that to all opinion there is 
attached a relative, but to none an absolute, truth ; the 
latter sought to demonstrate in general the impossibility 
of knowledge. While, however, the practical investiga- 
tions of Protagoras enriched philosophy in the succeeding 
systems of Plato and Democritus, the argumentation of 
Gorgias was developed in a captious and sterile dialectic. 
Gorgias showed : (1) Nothing is. That which is not, can- 
not be, and even as little can that which is. For that which 
is, cannot be thought either as unoriginated and imperish- 
able or as originated and perishable ; neither can it be 
thought as one or as many, nor indeed finally as moved, 
without being involved in obvious contradictions. The 
arguments of Zeno are everywhere re-employed here 
(§ 20). Moreover, that which is and that which is not to 
exist simultaneously, is impossible (against Heracleitus ?). 
(2) Were there something, it would not be knowable ; for 
that which is and that which is thought must be differ- 
ent, _ otherwise error would be impossible. 1 (3) If there 
were knowledge, it could not be communicated, because 
communication is possible only by means of signs, which 
are different from the thing itself. There is no warrant 
that there is a like apprehension of these signs by different 
individuals. 2 

Howsoever seriously and scientifically the theories of 
Skepticism were held, even by Protagoras, they neverthe- 
less led to the demoralization of science, and resulted finally 
in a frivolous diversion in daily life. Gorgias had found 

1 This dialectic is more finely spun out in the dialogue of the Sophist. 

2 One is almost inclined to regard these paradoxes of this anti-philo- 
sophical rhetorician as a grotesque persiflage of the Eleatic dialectic. 
At all events, this last is inevitably and fatally involved in its own 
toils. 



120 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY. 

that every predication of a subject is doubtful, 1 if indeed 
there is any difference whatever between subject and pred- 
icate. He therefore called in question synthetic judgments. 
Protagoras himself doubted the reality of mathematical 
knowledge. 2 Euthydemus, in the spirit of this relativism, 3 
said that anything is suitable to everything ; one cannot 
err, for what is spoken exists also as a something thought. 4 
One cannot contradict himself ; if he appears to, it is only 
because he is speaking of a different thing, and so on. 
Since the majority of the Sophists did not take truth seri- 
ously from the beginning, their entire art amounted to a 
dispute with formal adroitness pro et contra over anything 
whatsoever, and to equipping their pupils in this facility. 
Their principal aim was accordingly to be able to confuse 
the listener, to drive him into making absurd answers, and 
to refute one's opponent. 

Protagoras also wrote avrtKoytai and Kara/3 dWovres ; 5 
and the practice of the Sophists, especially in later time, 
in trying to be sensational, consisted simply in that art, 
which is called Eristic. 

Plato's ^Euthydemus describes with many playful witticisms 
the method of Eristic by the example of the two brothers 
Euthydemus and Dionysidorus, and Aristotle has taken the 
pains to arrange S3^stematically these witticisms in the last book 
of the Topics (-rrepi o-o<I>l(ttlk(dv iXeyx^v)- The greater number of 
these witticisms are puns. The ambiguity of the words, of the 
endings, of the syntactical forms, etc., are in the main the basis 
of the witticisms (Prantl, Gesch. d. Log., I. 20 f.). The great 
favor with which these jokes were received in Greece, and espe- 

i Sophist, 251 b. 

2 Arist. Met., II. 2, 998 a, 3. 

8 tcov ivpos tl elvcu ttjv dXrjdeiav. Sext. Emp. Adv. math., VII. 60. 

4 Here the ambiguity of the copula also plays a part. Lycophron 
proposed to omit the copula. 

5 The proposition that " man is the measure of all things " is cited as 
the beginning of this work, and at the same time as the beginning of a 
work, called akrjdeia, which perhaps formed the first part of it. 



THE GREEK ENLIGHTENMENT. 121 

dally in Athens, is explained by the 3 r outhful inclination to 
quibble, by the southron's fondness for talking, and by the 
awakening of reflective criticism upon familiar things of daily 
life. 

However, tbis facetious method was unpromising for the 
serious progress of science. On the other hand, the con- 
victiohless attitude of mind that the Sophists designedly or 
undesignedly encouraged became a direct menace in its 
application upon that domain in which, as their entire 
effort showed, they were alone deeply interested, — the 
ethico-political. Since the time of the Seven Wise Men 
(§ 9), the content of moral and civil laws and obedience to 
them had been a common subject for reflection. But the 
growing individualism, the inspired activity of the Periclean 
age, and the anarchy of the Athenian democracy for the 
first time brought into question through the Sophists the 
justification of these norms. Since here also the individual 
man with his temporary desires and needs was declared to 
be the measure of all things, the binding power of the law 
became as relatively valid as theoretical truth had been. 

See H. Sidgwick, The Sophists (Journal of Philology, 1872, 
1873) ; A. Harpf, Die Ethik des Protagoras (Heidelberg, 1884) ; 
and the general literature concerning the Sophists and particu- 
larly that concerning Socrates. Of the profounder investigations 
in which the more important Sophists were largely engaged, almost 
nothing is preserved save individual remarks and striking asser- 
tions. At most there is the myth of Protagoras in the dialogue 
of that name (320 f.). Perhaps the first half of the second book 
of the Republic refers also to something of the same sort. Per- 
haps the Sophists suffer in this domain, as in theory, from the 
fact that we are instructed concerning them only from their 
opponents. 1 

The most important point of view which the Sophists in 
this respect set up appeared in their contrast of the natural 

1 There is also a fragment found by Fr. Blass (Univers. Sclirift. Kiel., 
1889) in Jamblicims, Protrepticce orationes ad philosophiam, ch. 20, who 
attributed it to the Sophist Antiphon, 



122 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY. 

and social condition of man. From reflection upon the 
difference and change not only of legal prescriptions but 
also of social rules, 1 the Sophists concluded that at least a 
greater part of these had been established by convention 
through human statute (deaei sive vo/jlw) ; and that only 
such laws were universally binding as were established in 
all men equally by nature ($vaei). The natural therefore 
appeared to be of the greater worth, — more nearly per- 
manent and more binding than the social. Natural law 
seemed higher than historic positive law. The more se- 
rious Sophists endeavored then further to strip off from 
natural morality and natural laws the mass of convention- 
alities : Protagoras 2 taught that justice and conscience 
(8Ur) and at'&o?) are the gifts of the gods, and are common 
to all men ; but neither this nor the assertion of Hippias, 
that "law" violently drives 3 man to many things that are 
contrary to " nature," sets up any thoroughgoing and neces- 
sary opposition between the two legislations. But the 
more the theory of the Sophists conceived of " nature " as 
- human nature," and as " human nature " limited to its 
physical, impulsive, and individual aspect, so much the more 
did "law" appear a detriment and a limitation of the nat- 
ural man. Archelaus, the pupil of Anaxagoras, declared 
that social differences do not arise from " Nature." They 
are conventional determinations (ou fyvaei aWa vo/jlw).^ 
Plato 5 has Callicles develop the theory that all laws are 
created by the stronger, and these laws, on account of need 
of protection, the weaker accept. He 6 puts into the mouth 

1 Compare Hippias in Xen. Mem., IV. 4, 14 f. 

2 In his myth reproduced by Plato. 

3 Plato, Prot., 337 c. Similarly, but somewhat more brusquely, Cal- 
licles expresses himself in Plato, Gorgias, 482 f. 

4 Diog. Laert., II. 16. 

5 Loc. cit. 

6 Republic, 1, 338 f. 



THE GREEK ENLIGHTENMENT. 123 

of Thrasymachus of Chalcedon a naturalistic psychology of 
legislation, according to which the ruler in a natural body 
politic would establish laws for his own advantage. In 
this spirit Sophistry contended, in part from the point of 
view of " natural right," in part from that of absolute 
anarchy, against many existing institutions : 1 not only as 
the democratic Lycophron against every privilege of the 
nobility, or as Alcidamus against so fundamental a prin- 
ciple of ancient society as was slavery, but finally even 
against all custom and all tradition. 2 The independence 
of individual judgment, which the Enlightenment pro- 
claimed, shattered the rule of all authority and dissipated 
the content of social consciousness. 

In the attacks which already science in its more serious 
aspects had directed against religious ideas, it is obvious 
that religious authority also would be swept away with the 
flood of the Sophistic movement. All shades of religious 
freethinking are met with in Sophistic literature: — every- 
thing, from the cautious skepticism of Protagoras, who 
claimed 3 to know nothing of the gods, to the naturalistic 
and anthropological explanations of Critias 4 and Prodicus 5 
as to belief in the gods, and even to the outspoken atheism 
of a certain Diagoras 6 of Melos. 

27. Against the destructive activity of the Sophists ap- 
peared the powerful personality of Socrates, who stood 
indeed with his opponents upon the common ground of the 
Enlightenment, and like them raised to a principle the inde- 



1 To some extent with positive propositions whose authors, according 
to Aristotle {Pol., II. 8 & 7), were Hippodamus and a certain Phaleas. 

2 Compare Arist. Pol, I. 3, 1253 b, 20. 

3 By reason of the vagueness of the object and the brevity of human 
life; compare Diog. Laert., IX. 51. 

4 Compare the verse in Sext. Emp., IX. 54. 
6 Cic. De natura deorum, I. 42, 118. 

6 Compare Zeller, I 4 . 864, 1. 



. 124 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY. 

pendent reflection concerning everything given by tradition 
and custom. But at the same time he was unshaken in 
the conviction that through reflection a universally valid 
truth could certainly be found. 

The reports of Xenophon, 1 Plato, and Aristotle are the chief 
sources of our knowledge concerning Socrates. The remarkably 
different light that is cast from such different men upon this 
great personality makes him stand out in plastic distinctness. 
Xenophon saw more of the sober, practical, and popular side of 
the life and character of the man. Plato, on the contrary, beheld 
the height of his imagination, the depth of his spiritual being, 
his elevating influence on youthful and highly gifted minds. See 
S. Ribbing, Ueber das Verhdltniss zwischen d. xenopliqntischen 
u. d. platonisclien Berichten uber d. Personliclikeit u. d. Lehre 
d. Sokrates (Upsala, 1870). Xenophon's representation, so far 
as the author's knowledge goes, is one of historic fidelity, but 
it was strongly under the influence of Cynic party prejudice. 
Plato's writings, however, place in the mouth of Socrates less 
often Socrates' teachings (only in the Apology and the earliest 
dialogues) than the consequences that Plato has drawn out of 
them. Aristotle's teaching is everywhere authoritative as re- 
gards the teachings of Socrates ; for, following Socrates by some- 
what of an interval, and uninfluenced by personal relationship, 
he was able to set in clear light the essential features of Socrates' 
scientific work* 

H. Kochly, /Sokrates u. sein Volk (in Acad. Vortr. u. Red., I. 
219 f.); E. v. Lasaulx, Des Sokrates Leben, Lehre und Tod 
(Miinchen, 1857) ; M. Carriere, Sokrates u. seine Stellung in 
der Oescli. des menschliclien Oeistes (in Westermann's Monats- 
heften, 1864) ; E. Alberti, Sokrates, ein Versuch uber ihn nach 
den Quellen (Gottingen, 1869); E. Chaignet, Vie de Sokrate 
(Paris, 1868) ; A. Labriola, La doctrina di Sokrate (Neapel, 
1871) ; A.Fouillee, La philos. de Sokrate (Paris, 1873) ; A.Krohn, 
Sokrate doctrina e Platonis republica illustrata (Halle; 1875) ; 
Windelband, Sokrates (in Praeludien, p. 54 f.) ; K. Joel, Der 
Eclite u. der xenopliontische Sokrates, I. (Leipzig, 1892). 

i The Memorabilia are essential for our consideration of this (see A. 
Krohn, Soc. u. Xen., Halle, 1874). So is the Symposium. The question 
as to the priority of the Symposium of Xenophon or the Symposium of 
Plato is not yet fully decided in favor of the former, but is of late 
accepted. Compare Ch. V. Compare Sander, Bemerkungen zu Xeno- 
phon's Berichten, etc. (Magdeburg, 1884). 



THE GREEK ENLIGHTENMENT. 125 

Socrates was born in Athens a little before 46 9, 1 the son 
of Sophroniscus, a sculptor, and Phaenarete. He learned 
the trade 2 of his father, and discriminatingly absorbed the 
various elements of culture of his time, without applying 
himself to properly erudite studies. Acquaintance with the 
methods of instruction of the Sophists awoke in him the con- 
viction of the dangerousness of their tendencies. Against 
them he felt himself called by divine direction 3 to a serious 
examination 4 of himself and his fellow-citizens, and to un- 
remitting labor in the direction of moral perfection. He 
was moved by a deep religious spirit and an exalted moral 
sense in his investigations. He shared with his contem- 
poraries an immediate interest in these investigations; and 
his own peculiar activity, which began in Athens as early 
as the commencement of the Peloponnesian war, 5 rests 
upon these. He belonged to no school, and it was foreign 
to his purpose to found one. With spontaneous feeling, 
he sought on the broad public field, which Athenian life 
offered, intellectual intercourse with every one. His extra- 
ordinary exterior, 6 his dry humor, his ready and trium- 
phant repartee brought him into universal notice. His 
geniality, however, and the fine spiritual nature which lay 
hidden in his astonishing shell, 7 the unselfishness which 
he manifested unstintedly toward his friends, exercised an 
irresistible charm upon all the remarkable personalities of 
the time, especially upon the better elements of the Athe- 

1 He was at his death (399) over seventy years old. 

2 Concerning a piece, later on pointed out as one upon which the 
young Socrates was said to have wrought, see P. Schuster, Ueber die 
Portrdts der griech. Philos. (Leipzig, 187.7). 

3 Plato, Apol, 33 c. 

4 e^erd^etv e/xavrov Kai tov? HWovs ' ibid., 28 e. 

5 The production of the Clouds, 423, attests his popularity. 

6 The humorous characterization of his own Silenus shape is in Xeno- 
phon's Symposium, 4, 19 f. 

7 Compare the beautiful speech of Alcibiadcs in Plato, Symposium, 
215 f. 



A 



126 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY. 

nian youth. While he in this way obeyed higher duty to 
the neglect 1 of home cares, in free fellowship a circle of 
admirers formed itself around him in which especially the 
aristocratic youth were represented in men like Alcibiades. 
He held himself as far away from political activity as pos- 
sible, but the unavoidable duties of the citizen of a state he 
performed with simple integrity. 2 

At the age of seventy Socrates was accused of " cor- 
rupting the youth and introducing new gods." The charges 
arose originally from low personal motives, 3 but became 
serious through political complications, 4 in that the aristo- 
cratically inclined philosopher, as the most popular and 
active " Sophist," was to be made answerable for moral 
degeneration by the democratic reactionary party. Not- 
withstanding he would have been freed with a small pen- 
alty 5 if he himself had not offended 6 the Heliasts by his 
candid pride in his virtue. The execution of the sentence 
of death was delayed thirty days by the Oecapia to Delos, 
and Socrates disdained in his loyalty 7 to law the flight so 
easily possible to him. He drank the cup of hemlock in 
May, 8 399. 

1 Concerning Xantippe, whose name has become proverbial, see 
E. Zeller, Zur Ehrenrettung der Xen. (in Vortrag und Abhandlung, 
I. p. 51 f). 

2 He made three campaigns, and showed himself, as prytanis, just and 
fearless against the excited minds of the masses (see Plato, Apol., 32 f.). 

3 The accusers Meletus, Anytus, and Lycon acted out of personal 
animosity, unless they were men of straw (K. F. Hermann, De Soc. accu- 
satoribus, Gottingen, 1854). 

4 See Grote, History of Greece, VIII. 551 f. 

6 The verdict of " guilty " was carried only by a majority of three or 
thirty ; the sentence of death had a much larger majority (more than 
eighty). 

6 The Apology of Plato may be taken as authentic in its essentials. 

7 Compare Plato's dialogue, the Crito. 

8 In respect to the external circumstances of the day of his death, 
Plato's dialogue, the Phcedo, is certainly historical, although Plato in it 



THE GREEK ENLIGHTENMENT. 127 

An instructor in philosophy, in the strict sense of the term, 
Socrates did not have. He called himself (Xen. Symposium, 
1, b) avrovpyos. But apparently he had become familiar with 
many of the scientific theories, especially with those of Hera- 
cleitus and Anaxagoras, not only through the discourses of the 
Sophists but through his own readings. (Compare K. F. Her- 
mann, De S. maglstris et disciplines juvenili, Marburg, 1837.) 
The process of development portrayed in the Phmdo is scarcely 
historical, but can be looked upon as a sketch of the Platonic 
theory of ideas. (Compare Zeller, II 4 . 51.) 

Xenophon, as well as Plato, makes Socrates meet persons of 
every position, calling, and political complexion in his conver- 
sations. His relation to young men was an ethically pedagogical 
and morally spiritual ennoblement of the Grecian love for boys. 
Among the men who made his popular philosophical method 
their own are to be named : Xenophon, who stood very near to 
the Cynics (compare F. Dlimmler, Antisthenica, Berl., 1882, and 
Academica, Giessen, 1889) ; also iEschines (not the orator), 
who wrote dialogues in the same spirit (K. F. Hermann, De 
^Esch. Socratici reliquiis (Gottingen, 1850) ; and the almost 
mythical shoemaker Simon (see Bockh, Simonis Socraticis 
dialogi, Heidelberg, 1810, and E. Heitz in O. Miiller's Lit- 
ter aturgeschichte, II 2 . 2, 25, note 2). 

The legal measures against Socrates are open to the most 
different constructions. The old view that the philosopher was 
ruined through intrigues of the Sophists may be regarded as 
given up, and also the conception originated by Hegel {Complete 
Works, II. 560 f.,XIV. 81 f.), according to which, as in a tragedy, 
Socrates was the champion of the higher Idea, and was ruined 
by his unavoidable crime of offending the established laws. These 
great antitheses pla}' no part in the trial. It appears, rather, that 
through personal and political intrigues Socrates became a 
sacrifice for the discontent which the democratic reaction fostered 
against the entire Enlightenment. Although presumably unin- 
tentionally, nevertheless Aristophanes did a decided injury to 
the philosopher in his caricature of him in the Clouds, 1 in that 
he stamped him in the public mind as a type of precisely those 
Sophistic excesses which Socrates fought most vigorously. 
(Compare H. Th. Eotscher, Aristophanes und seine Zeitalter, 

goes far beyond Socrates in his theory of the immortality of the soul 
(compare ApoL, 40 c) not only in his presentation of evidence, but as to 
his personal conviction. 

1 Compare especially H. Diels, Verh. d. Stett. Phil. Vers., 1880, 
106 f. 



128 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY. 

Berlin, 1817 ; Brandis, in the Rh. Mus., 1828 ; P. W. Forch- 
hammer, Die Athener und JSoc, Berlin, 1837 ; Bendixen, Weber 
den tieferen Schriftsinn, etc. (Husum, 1838.) 

The theory of knowledge of the Sophists had led in all 
its parts to a relativism of individual opinions. The effort, 
on the other hand, for a stable and universally valid knowl- 
edge formed the central point of the activity of Socrates. 
The eirLo-Trjixr] was set in antithesis to the B6%ai by him ; 
yet the eincrrrjfjbr] is not a complete, erudite possession to be 
handed down, but an ideal to be striven for in work in com- 
mon with other men. 

Fr. Schleiermacher, Ueber d. Wert des Sokrates als Philos. in 
Ges. Werk, III. 2, 287 ff. 

Socrates did not try, therefore, to impart knowledge or 
to give purely formal instruction, but to engage in a mutual 
seeking for truth. The basis of this was the conviction 
that such a norm of truth existed paramount to individual 
opinion. Therefore his activity found its necessary form 
in the dialogue, the conversation in which, through the 
exchange of opinions and through mutual criticism of these, 
that should be found which is recognizable by all. While 
the Sophists studied the psychological mechanism by which 
opinions come to be, Socrates had faith in a law of reason 
that determines the truth. His whole endeavor was only 
a continuous invitation to his fellow-citizens to help him in 
this search. His confession of his ignorance * signified this, 
while he also at the same time herein intimated 2 his 
failure to attain his ideal of ao^la. Yet he demanded the 
same measure of self-knowledge 3 also from others. For 

i Plato, Apol, 21 f. ; Symp., 216 d. 

2 Compare Plato, Symp., 203 f. In this connection the term (piXoaocjila 
wins, as contrasted with the more pretentious ao(pia (a-o^icrr^?), its pecu- 
liar meaning, u striving for knowledge." See Ueberweg, p. 2. 

3 Compare the oracular yvS)6i aeavrov, Xen. Mem., IV. 24 f. ; Plato, 
Apol, 21 f. 



THE GREEK ENLIGHTENMENT. 129 

nothing more dangerous blocked the way of wisdom than 
that conceited affectation of wisdom which the Sophistic 
half-education developed in the majority of minds. There- 
fore his conversation analyzed with exasperating logic the 
opinion which at the outset he elicited from others, and in 
this superior manipulation of the dialectic consisted the 
Socratic irony. 1 But after removing this impediment 
Socrates, in leading the conversation, sought to draw out 
gradually what was common to the participants. In the 
persuasion that serious reflection could find such a common 
thought, he " delivered " the slumbering thought from the 
mind ; and this art he called his maieutic. 2 

The method of the Socratic investigation corresponded, 
in point of content also, to this external schema. He set 
the concept as the goal 3 of scientific work over against 
the single ideas given by individual perception. When 
therefore Socrates in general aimed at definition, he 
came into contact with the efforts of the Sophists 4 who had 
busied themselves in fixing the meanings of words. But 
he on his part went much deeper, in the hope of grasping 
the essence of fact and the law governing single cases and 
relationships by the application of this universal principle. 
In making the answer to the particular question from which 
the conversation proceeded depend 6 on the general defini- 
tion to be sought, he was making man conscious of the law 
of logical dependence of the particulars upon the universal, 
and exalting that law to the principle of the scientific 
method. In the search for universal concepts Socrates still 



i Plato, 12ep., I. 337 a. 

2 With reference to the profession of his mother; Plato, Thecet., 149 f. 

3 Arist. Met., XII. 4, 1078 b, 17 : to opi^aOaL xaQokov. The tech- 
nical expression for the concept is, in this connection, Xdyoy. 

4 Particularly with Prodicus, with whom his relations were uniformly 
friendly. 

6 Xen. Mem., IV. 13. 



130 HiSTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY. 

remained strongly fixed in the habits of naive reflection. 
For the inductive procedure, the introduction of which is 
accredited to him, 1 consisted in the comparison of arbitra- 
rily collated particular cases, by means of which, however, 
a complete induction could not be guaranteed. But, never- 
theless, the Socratic method was a distinct advance over the 
entirely unmethodical generalizations, which earlier think- 
ers had drawn from single observations or thought motifs. 
It began, moreover, to set a methodical treatment in the 
place of ingenious fancies. 

P. J. Ditges, Die epagogische Methode des S. (Cologne, 
1864) ; J. J. Guttmann, Ueber den wissenschaftlichen Stand- 
pitnkt des /S. (Brieg, 1881). Examples of the Socratic method 
are to be found in the Memorabilia of Xenophon and in most 
of the dialogues of Plato. Socrates did not advance to a defi- 
nite formulation of methodical principles, but his entire activity 
has given them distinctly the character of an inspired insight. 

The realm to which Socrates applied this method of the 
inductive definition of concepts included — as in the case 
of the Sophists — essentially the problems of human life. 
For, as his search for conceptual truth was rooted in the 
strength of his moral conviction, science and moral self- 
culture were to him in the last instance identical. The 
universally valid truth, which he said was to be found by 
means of conversation, is the clearness and certainty of 
moral consciousness. 

The limitation of philosophy to ethics, and on the other hand 
the establishment of scientific ethics, passed even in antiquity 
as the essential characteristic of the Socratic teaching. (See 
Zeller, II 4 . 132 f. ). Neither the poetic license, with which 
Aristophanes (in the Clouds) made of him a star-gazer, nor the 
passages in the later Platonic dialogues (Phcedo and Philebus), 
in which a teleological nature-philosoplry is put into his mouth, 
nor, finally, the very homely utilitarian theory, presumably after- 
ward revised 2 by the Stoics, which the Memorabilia makes him 

1 Arist. Met., 1. c. 2 See A. Krohn, Xen. u. Soc. (Halle, 1874). 



THE GREEK ENLIGHTENMENT. 131 

develop, — none of these can have weight against the very defi- 
nite expressions of Xenophon (Mem., I. 1, 11) and Aristotle 
(Met., I. 6, 987 b, 2). On the other hand, his aversion to 
natural science was not in the spirit of Skepticism, but due to 
the deficiency of science in ethical value. A universal faith in 
the teleological arrangement of the world and in a Providence 
over mankind remained side by side with this aversion. See con- 
clusion in Plato's Apology, in Euthyphro, etc. 

In this specific ethical turn, Socrates followed, however, 
a psychological principle, which expresses the rationalistic 
character of the Enlightenment in its purity. It is the 
formula of the identity of virtue and knowledge. 1 In the 
complicated relationships of civilized life the habitual ob- 
servance of national conventions had become insufficient. 
In the confusion of public life, where one thing was com- 
mended here, another there, every one felt that he needed 
knowledge and judgment for making correct decisions. 
In the increasing competition in civilization the well-in- 
formed 2 man proved himself to be the abler in all depart- 
ments of life. Socrates expressed himself most clearly as 
to this condition, when he, applying the case to morals, 
declared that true virtue consists in knowing, and that right 
knowing leads always of itself to right acting. Thereby 
to know the Good was elevated to the essence of morality 
and reflection to the principle of living. Philosophy, as 
Socrates understood it, was the independent meditation of 
reasoning man upon that law of goodness valid for all 
alike. Knowledge is a moral possession, and the common 
striving for it he designated as a process of mutual help- 
fulness 3 under the name e/xw?. On the other hand, this 

1 See Xen. Mem., III. 9, 4. 

2 Ibid., 9, 10 if. 

3 This is the Socratic concept of eptos, whose extreme importance 
appears in the fact that not only Plato and Xenophon, but also other 
friends within the Socratic circle, have written about it. Compare 
Brandis, Handbuch, II. 1, 64. 



132 HISTOEY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY. 

point of view involved a deterministic and intellectual con- 
ception of the will, which makes moral excellence depend- 
ent upon intellectual culture, and in general the decision of 
will exclusively dependent on the clearness and ripeness 
of the insight. When he asserted that all evil action pro- 
ceeds only out of a deficient insight, 1 this is the same as 
proclaiming entirely in the spirit of the Enlightenment that 
knowledge is the ethical ideal. For Socrates all other 
virtues accord with the fundamental virtue, eVio-T^yu,?;, 2 
and possessing this all the others are attainable and 
/j teachable, j The process begun at the time of the Seven 
Wise Men was completed in these definitions of Socrates ; 
and the norms of universal consciousness, after they had for 
a time been imperilled by individual criticism, during the 
wild anarchy of opinions were again found by rational re- 
flection and by the recognition of the universal validity 
therein involved. 

The question of the teachableness of virtue is treated in a most 
engaging dialectic in the dialogue Protagoras, while the other 
dialogues of Plato's earliest period have for their common theme 
the reduction of the single virtues to the fundamental virtue of 
knowledge. These are Euthyphro, Laches, Charmides, and 
Lysis. Compare F. Dittrich, Le S. sententia virtutem esse 
scientiam (Braunsberg, 1868) and particularly T. Wildauer, 
Lie Psychologie des Willens bei Sokrates, Platon und Aris- 
toteles, Part I. (Innsbruck, 1877). Besides, the determinism of 
Socrates stands in a close relation to his eudsemonism (see 
below). For the proposition that no one will freely do wrong 
is founded upon the same basis with that proposition that if 
one has recognized what is good for him it would be impossible 
for him to choose the opposite against his own interest. Com- 
pare Xen. Mem., IV. 6, 6; Arist. Magn. Moral., I. 9, 1187 a, 
17. 

In the realm of ethics, moreover, Socrates stopped at 
this most general suggestion without developing syste- 

i Xen. Mem., III. 9. 

2 In Xenophon one still finds the word ao(f)ia for this ; see Mem., 

in. 9. 



THE GREEK ENLIGHTENMENT. 133 

matically that kind of knowing (Wisseri) in which vir- 
tue was said to consist. For the distinctive trait of the 
activity of Socrates was that he never lost sight of the 
given conditions. Therefore the question, " What then is 
the Good ? " always became the question as to what is 
the Good in a particular respect and for a particular indi- 
vidual ; 1 and the answer was always found in the suitable, 
in that which perfectly satisfies the striving of man and 
makes him happy. According to the grosser 2 interpreta- 
tion of Xenophon, Socrates' ethical theory was utilitarian- 
ism, and the value of virtue founded on knowing sank to 
the prudential cleverness of acting in every case according 
to correct knowledge (Erkenntnis) of expediency. The finer 
presentation of Plato refers, however, this wfyeXifiov, which 
is assumed as identical with kolKov .and dyadov, to the 
health of the soul, 3 to its furtherance toward a true state 
of perfection. In both cases, nevertheless, intellectual 
virtue is identified with happiness. 4 Right action, toward 
which insight guides, makes man happy. The fundamental 
conception of ethics in Socrates is thoroughly eudaemonis- 
tic, and ancient philosophy did not pass beyond this point. 

Compare M. Heinze, Der Eudamonismus in der griech. 
Philos. (Leipzig, 1883) ; Zeller, II 4 . 149 f. In all particulars 
the Socratic morals remained essentially within the compass of 
Greek social-consciousness. 5 It sought to find a basis in the 

1 Mem., III. 8. 

2 In whose writings, in one passage, it would appear that Socrates 
agreed in morals with the relativism of the Sophists : Mem. , III. 8, 
iravra ayaOa kol KaXd eort npos a av ev exjj, KaKa Se ml alaxpa npos a av 

KCLKGIS. 

3 Particularly note the representation of the Phcedo. 
* Xen. Mem., IV. 1, 2. 

6 To be excepted is only the prohibition of doing evil to an enemy. 
If here the contradiction between Plato's and Xenophon's representa- 
tions is irreconcilable, we are inclined to regard Plato's report as the 
true one : for the Crito, which treats this prohibition as one already long 



134 HISTOKY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY. 

reverent recognition of divine law and established usage. Par- 
ticularly Socrates himself, the model of noble and pure morals, 
gave high place to civic virtue, to submission to the laws of the 
state. In the state, however, he would have not the masses, but 
the good and intelligent, rule (Xen. Mem., III. 9, 10). 

Socrates personally supplemented his indifference to 
metaphysical and physical theories by a deep and religious 
piety, which led him to believe in the rule of the divine es- 
sence in nature and in human life. He likewise supple- 
mented the rationalistic one-si dedness of his ethics by his 
unswerving faith in obedience to the divine voice, which he 
believed he heard in himself as haipoviov. 

Likewise in the development of this thought, Xenophon, pro- 
vided the extant form of the Memorabilia comes from him, 
stood at the point of view of commonplace utility, while Plato's 
Apology represents faith in Providence in a high ethical light. 
In Socrates the rejection of nature knowledge comes about from 
the fact that such knowledge contains trifles that waste our 
time. 1 On the other hand, there was the interest of piety, which 
led 2 him to require a teleological view of the cosmos. It is im- 
probable that he gave an exhaustive development of it, because 
{Mem., I. 4, and IV. 3) Socrates usually was most prudently 
reserved on such questions. Even Monotheism he by no means 
emphasized sharply. He speaks mostly of " the Gods," both in 
Xenophon and Plato, and no enem}? - ever once charged him with 
disavowing " the Gods." 3 Concerning the Sacpoviov, compare 
Ueberweg, I 4 . 107, and Zeller, II 4 . 74. 

Kegarded on the whole, the activity of Socrates, in that 
he set up the ideal of reason as against relativism, was an 
attempt to reform the life morally by means of science. 
The success of his teaching led among the best friends of 

recognized in the Socratic circle, though indeed at variance with popu- 
lar opinion, clearly belongs to the earliest writings of Plato. 

1 Xen. Mem., I. 1, and IV. 7. 

2 Ibid., I. 4, and IV 3. 

8 He was reproached with introducing a new divine being, and his 
enemies appeared to be aiming especially at the dai/xovtov. 



THE GREEK ENLIGHTENMENT. 135 

the philosopher to the highest achievements of ancient 
culture. The principle of reflective introspection, however, 
which was thus victoriously awakened, and the enthusiasm 
with which Socrates turned his meditations from the charm 
of external existence to the value of the intellectual life, 
were in the Grecian world a new and strange thing. At 
this point of view the philosophy embodied by him detached 
itself from its background of culture and took other shape. 
28. Under the name " Socratics " a number of schools 
are usually grouped, which, founded by men of more or less 
close association with Socrates, stepped forth, directly after 
his death, with opinions that belonged in their direction and 
content entirely to the Greek Enlightenment. If we look, 
nevertheless, more closely, we see that these men and their 
teaching have a much nearer relationship to the Sophists * 
than to Socrates ; and that, especially in the development 
of these schools, the " Socratic element/' which to some 
degree was still present in Euclid, Antisthenes, and Aris- 
tippus, vanishes more and more from sight. These so- 
called " Socratic schools " should rather be viewed as 
branches of Sophism which were touched by the Socratic 
spirit. There were four such schools : the Megarian and 
the Elean-Eretrian, the Cynic and the Cyrenaic. Among 
these the Cynics stand nearest to Socrates. 

K. F. Hermann, Die philos. Stellung der alteren SoJcratiker 
u. Hirer Schulen (in Ges. Abhandl, Gottingen, 1849, p. 227 f.) ; 
Th. Zugler, Gesch. d. Ethik, I. 145. 

The founder of the Megarian school, Euclid, believed in 
his ability to give content to the Eleatic concept of Being, 
by identifying it with the Socratic concept of the Good. 
Yet no victory over the abstract sterility of the Parme- 
nidean principle was won by this method. For even if 

1 Aristotle calls {Met., II. 2, 996 a, 33), for example, Aristippus a 
Sophist, and with justice. 



136 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY. 

Euclid defined 1 the Good as the one ever immutable 2 
Being, which is given 3 different names by men ; even if he 
characterized the different virtues only as the changing 
names of the one unchangeable virtue, that is, of knowing, 
which was thus identified with Being as among the Eleatics ; 
even if he thereby refused 4 reality to all concepts other 
than to that of the Good ; — nevertheless all this led 
neither to the construction of an ethics nor to an enrich- 
ment of theoretical knowledge, but gave evidence of a con- 
tinuation of unfruitful dialectic in the direction of Eleatic 
Sophistry. The Megarians, therefore, accomplished noth- 
ing in the realm of ethics. The only one of them to whom 
political teachings are ascribed was Stelpo, the later head 
of the school, who, however, in this respect had entirely 
adopted the views of the Cynics. In metaphysics the 
Megarians were satisfied with the assertion of the unity of 
that which possesses Being, and with an indirect proof of 
that assertion resembling the Eleatic argumentations. In 
this spirit Diodorus Cronus added 6 to the arguments of 
Zeno new ones which were indeed less significant and far 
more captious. In these the impossibility of constructing 
a continuum out of a sum of discrete quantities again 
played the chief role. There was a similar tendency mani- 
fested in the investigations of the Megarians concerning the 
categories of modality. For the assertion that only the 
actual 6 is possible, and the famous proof (icvpLevow) 7 of 
Diodorus Cronus — that the unactual, which has demon- 

1 Diog. Laert., VII. 161. 

2 Cicero, Acad., II. 42, 129. 
8 Diog. Laert., II. 106. 

4 Ibid.: compare Euseb. Prcep. ev., XIV. 17. 
6 Preserved in Sext. Emp. Adv. math., X. 85 £. 

6 Arist. Met, VIII. 3, 1046 b, 29. 

7 Compare Cicero, Be fato, 6, 12 f. Later philosophers, particularly 
Chrysippus, have definitely declared their positions with reference to 
this argument. 



THE GREEK ENLIGHTENMENT. 137 

strated itself through its unactuality to be impossible, may 
not be called possible — point only in a rather abstract 
way to the refutation of Becoming and change. 1 

Compare F. Deycks, Die Megarieorum doctrina (Bonn, 
1827) ; Henne, jficole de Megare (Paris, 1843) ; Mallet, His- 
toire de Vecole de Megare et des ecoles dElis et d/ Eretrie 
(Paris, 1845). 

We can only speak in general of the dates of the life of 
Euclid of Megara, one of the oldest and truest friends that 
Socrates had. He was not much 3 T ounger than Socrates, yet he 
considerably outlived him, and opened after the death of the 
master his hospitable house to his friends. About this time a 
school formed itself around him, and it appears to have re- 
mained intact through the fourth century. Of the most of 
those who are mentioned as adherents of this school, we know 
only the names. Particulars are reported only of Eubulides of 
Miletus, the teacher of Demosthenes, of Diodorus Cronus, of 
Iasus in Caria (d. 307), and especially of Stilpo, who was a 
native of Megara (Diog. Laert., II. 113 f.). Stilpo lived from 
380 to 300, and aroused universal admiration by his lectures. 
He linked the Megarian dialectics to the Cynic ethics, and deci- 
sively influenced thereby his chief pupil, Zeno, the founder of 
Stoicism. His }-ounger contemporary was Alexinus of Elis. 

The most important controversial question arising in refer- 
ence to the Megarian school concerns the hypothesis set up by 
Schleiermacher (in his translation of Plato, V. 2, 140 f.) and 
opposed by Bitter ( JJeber d. Philos. der meg. Schule, Bhein. 
Mus., 1828) and Mallet (loc. cit. XXXIV. f.), accepted by most 
others, including Brandis and Prantl, and defended by Zeller 
(I 4 . 215 f.). This hypothesis is to the effect that the represen- 
tation of the theory of Ideas in the dialogue, the Sophist (246 b, 
248 f.), refers to the Megarians. If one is convinced that 
this dialogue is genuinely Platonic, it is difficult to provide for 
this theory of Ideas. For to presuppose any kind of an other- 
wise unknown school (Bitter) as the author of so significant a 

1 Since Aristotle cites the proposition as Megarian, that only the 
actual is the possible, it can scarcely have arisen from the polemic 
against the Aristotelian categories hvvafiis and ivepyeia. But possibly 
the later Megarians, for example Diodorus, developed it in this direction. 
Compare Hartenstein, JJeber die Bedeutung der megarischen Schule fiir 
die GescMclite der metaphysischen Probleme (in Hist, philos. Abhand- 
lungen, 127 f.). 



138 HISTORY OP ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY. 

system as that of the ao-w/xara dSr/, is forbidden because Aristotle 
(Met. , I. 6 ; JSfic. Eth. , I. 4) designated Plato distinctly as the 
inventor of the same. It is certainly very far from having any 
place in the Socratic schools. But the teaching is even as little 
consistent with what has been at other times confidently ascribed 
to the Megarians as with the teaching of any one of the other 
schools. In no place is there a single indication of it. It 
stands in so abrupt opposition especially to the abstract theory 
of Being of the Megarians, that we do not avoid the difficulty 
b}' taking for granted a gradual development within the school. 1 
On the other hand, it may be shown that the description 2 
which the dialogue, the Sophist, gives of this theory of Ideas, 
agrees completely and even verbally with that phase of the 
Platonic philosophy expressed in the Symposium. 8 There is, 
accordingly, nothing left but either accept Plato as opposed to 
an earlier phase of his own teaching and its <f>lKoi, or to find 
the author of this criticism of the Platonic philosophy in an 
Eleatic contemporary of Plato. (For details, see Ch. V.) In 
neither case can the theory of Ideas treated in the passage in 
the Sophist, nor the developed theory of knowledge connected 
closely with it and completely Platonic in character, be ascribed 
to the Megarians. This theory in the Sophist amounts to a 
sensuous knowledge of yeVeo-t?, or a knowledge of the corporeal 
world plus a conceptual knowledge of ova-la, which is a knowl- 
edge of the non-corporeal Ideas. 

The only remaining feature worthy of comment in regard 
to the Megarian school is its development of the Sophistic 
art of Eristic. Its abstract theory of unity involved a 
skepticism regarding all concrete knowledge and a nega- 
tive trend in its instruction. The prominent fact in re- 

1 Zeller seems to believe (II 4 . 261) that the Euclidean theory of 
Ideas was given up in the course of the development of the school to 
satisfy the theory of unity. Since the latter theory had been given 
from the very beginning in the form of Eleaticism there must then be 
expected conversely a gradual division of the Eleatic One into a plural- 
ity of Ideas and this is precisely what Plato accomplished. 

2 See E. Appel, Arch. f. Gesch. d. Ph., V. 55 f. 

3 In this connection there is hardly an allusion to Ideas as causes of 
the phenomenal world. Zeller, I 4 . 316. The ovcria as alrla is first intro- 
duced in the Phmdo, Philebus, and the latter parts of the Republic. 
See Ch. V. 



THE GREEK ENLIGHTENMENT. 139 

spect to Euclid is that he in polemics followed the method 1 
of neglecting proofs and even premises, and leaped directly 
to the conclusion by means of reductio ad absurdum. Stilpo 
accepted the Sophistic-Cynic assertion, that according to 
the law of identity a predicate different from the subject 
cannot be ascribed to the subject. The younger members, 
Eubulides and Alexinus, 2 got their notoriety by inventing 
the so-called " catches." These are questions put in such 
a way that no one of the possible disjunctive answers can 
be given without involving a contradiction. 

See Prantl, Gesch. der Zogik, I. 33 f. ; Diog. Laert., II. 168, 
enumerates seven of these "catches," — the Liar, then three 
practically identical ones, the Concealed, the Disguised, and 
the Electra, and further the Horned Man, and finally the Heap 
(Sorites) and the Bald-head, which positively and negatively 
suggest the acervus of Zeno (§ 20). As was the case with the 
Sophistic witticisms, these were in the main reducible to verbal 
ambiguities. The lively interest that antiquity had in them was 
almost wholly pathological. 

Still less significant was the Elean-Eretrian school, which 
was founded by Phsedo, Socrates' favorite scholar, in his 
native city Elis. Later it was transferred by Menedemus 
to his home, Eretria, where it died out about the beginning 
of the third century. It appears to have taken a similar 
line of development as the Megarian school and Phaedo 
agreed with Euclid 3 in all essentials. Menedemus, who 
received instruction in the Academy and from Stilpo, co- 
operated with Stilpo in turning the school toward Cynic 
ethics. Both schools merged finally, like the Cynic, in the 
Stoa- 

1 Diog. Laert., II. 107. 

2 Whose name was facetiously perverted into 'EXeyt-lvos: Diog. 
Laert., II. 109. 

3 Presumably he had received powerful influence from Euclid dur- 
ing his stay in Megara. 



140 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY. 

Compare Mallet (see above) ; L. Preller, Phcedon's Lebens- 
schicksale und Schriften (Erschund Gruber, III. 21. 357 f.) ; v. 
Wilamowitz-Mollendorf {Hermes, 1879). 

Phsedo, when very young, was taken into captivity by the Athe- 
nians, and not long before Socrates' death he was, at the insti- 
gation of Socrates, freed from slavery by one of his friends. 
The genuineness of the dialogues ascribed to him was early very 
much in doubt. At an}^ rate, as little from the literary activity 
of this school is preserved as from that of the Megarians. 
Menedemus, who is said to have died soon after 271 at the age 
of seventy-four, had (Diog. Laert., II. 125 f.) raised himself 
from a very low position to one of considerable authority. It is 
now impossible to determine whether his apparently loose and 
transitory relation to the Academy was a fact. Only the names 
of the other members of the school are preserved. 

29. Notably more important are the two schools existing 
immediately after Socrates and not uninfluenced by his 
ethical doctrine. In these, the Cynic and Cyrenaic, the 
opposition as to both moral and social conceptions of life 
took definite form. They had in common an indifference 
for theoretic science and a desire to concentrate philosophy 
upon the art of living. Common also was the origin of 
their philosophy from the Sophistic circle ; and they found 
partial support in the formulations of Socrates. They 
were, however, diametrically opposed in their conception of 
the place of man and his relation to society. This re- 
mained a typical opposition for the whole ancient world. 
Both theories as the result of the cultural and philosoph- 
ical impulse given by the Sophists reveal the disposition 
of the Grecian world toward the value which civilization 
possesses in its control of individual impulses. This com- 
mon problem put the same limits upon their endeavors in 
spite of their different conclusions. 

The Cynic school was called into life by Antisthenes of 
Athens, and maintained its popularity on account of the 
original character, Diogenes of Sinope. Among its more 
distant followers may be named Crates of Thebes, his wife 
Hipparchia, and her brother Metrocles. 



THE GREEK ENLIGHTENMENT. 141 

Antisthenes, born about 440, was not a full-blooded Athenian. 
He had entered the Sophistic profession of teaching as the pupil 
of Gorgias, before he came under the influence of Socrates, 
whose active admirer he became. After the death of Socrates 
he founded a school in the gymnasium Cynosarges, which he 
administered for quite a time. Of his numerous writings 
(Diog. Laert. , VI. 15 f.) only a few fragments are preserved, — 
collected by A. W. Winckelmann (Zurich, 1842). Compare 
Chappius, Antisthene (Paris, 1854) ; K. Barlen, Antisthenes u. 
Platon (Neuwied, 1891) ; K. Urban, Ueber die Erwahnungen 
der Philos. des Antisthenes in den platonischen Schriften 
(Konigsberg, 1882) ; F. Diimmler, Antisthenica (Halle, 1882) 
and Akademika (Giessen, 1889) ; E. Norden, Beitrdge z. Gesch. 
d.gr. Ph., 1-4. 

Diogenes, the Sco/cpar^? /*,aivo/x.€i/o9, fled as a counterfeiter from 
his home to Athens, and ornamented his proletariat and queer 
existence with the wisdom of Antisthenes. He claimed to put 
the theory of his teacher consistently into practice. In old age 
he lived as tutor in the house of Xeniades in Corinth, and died 
there in 323. Compare K. W. Gottling, Diogenes der Kyniker 
oder d. Phil, des gr. Proletariats ( Geschich. AbhandL, I. 251 f.) ; 
.K. Steinhart (Ersch u. Gruber, I. 25, 301 f.) 

Crates of Thebes, nearly contemporary of Stilpo, is said to 
have given away his property in order to dedicate himself to 
the Cynic life. His rich and nobly connected wife followed 
him into a beggar's existence. Anecdotes only are preserved 
concerning his brother-in-law, Metrocles. Cynicism continued 
later as a popular moralizing instruction ; for example in Teles, 
whom v. Wilamowitz-Mollendorf treats (Philol. Uhtersuchungen, 
IV. 292 f.), and whose fragments have been published by O. 
Hense (Freiburg, 1889). Later do we find Cynicism in Bion of 
Borysthenes, whose sermons greatly influenced later literature 
(Horace), 1 as upon the other hand the satires of the Phoenician 
Menippus, which breathe the Cynic spirit, influenced Varro. 
See Zeller, II 3 . 246, 3. 

As only the Good was Being for the Megarians, for 
the Cynics virtue appeared to be the only legitimate con- 
tent and purpose of life. With similar Eleatic one-sided- 
ness they remained averse to all other ideals and disdain- 
ful of them. They taught indeed, like Socrates, that virtue 
consists in knowing, and yet they emphasized the practical 

1 Compare R. Heinze, De Horatio Bionis imitatore (Bonn, 1889). 



142 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY. 

side, that is, right action, and especially the consistent 
carrying out of moral principles x in life. They like- 
wise attributed only so much value, therefore, to scien- 
tific investigations as those investigations serve ethical 
purposes. 

It is to be added that in its epistemology also this school 
stood entirely upon the ground of Sophistic skepticism. 
It indeed sounds to some degree Socratic for Antisthenes 
to demand 2 the explanation of the permanent essence of 
things by definition. Yet in his development of this pos- 
tulate he fell back upon the opinion of Gorgias that of no 
subject can an attribute differing in any way from it be 
predicated. He made it equivalent to the statement that 
only identical judgments are possible. 3 Accordingly only 
the composite are definable ; 4 all simple things, on the other 
hand, can be indicated 5 only by their peculiar individual 
names, which, however, do not explain the essence of the 
fact itself. Thus their theory of knowledge reduced itself 
to bare skepticism ; and it also manifested itself in Antis- 
thenes adopting the Sophistic teaching that a contradic- 
tion is wholly impossible. 6 

1 Even in the character of Antisthenes this consistency, this serious 
and strict adherence to principles, was the central point. Diogenes 
intended assuredly to outdo him in this respect. 

2 To him belongs the definition Xoyos iariv 6 to t'l rjv tj earn dn\a>v. 

8 That the place in the Sophist, 251 b, refers to Antisthenes, Aristotle 
teaches in Metaphysics, IV. 29, 1024 b, 32. 

4 Compare Aristotle, ibid., VII. 3, 1043 b,-24. 

5 The logically central truth of the Cynic teaching appears in the 
Platonic statement (TheceL, 201 f.). This truth is that the ultimate 
terms (to. 7rpa»ra) by which all else may be defined are themselves not 
definable or reducible to something else. This opinion is closely joined 
with that which looks upon these last elements of concepts as the 
arToixeia, by which all things are really constituted. This is a view 
which in a certain sense sounds like the homoiomeriai of Anaxagoras, 
and also like the Platonic theory of Ideas. 

6 Arist. Met., IV. 29, 1024 b, 34. 



THE GREEK ENLIGHTENMENT 143 

This purely Sophistic limitation of knowledge to nomenclature 
had taken on as a most obvious nominalism a distinct polemical 
tendency against the theory of Ideas. The old tradition placed 
in the mouths of Antisthenes and Diogenes rough and coarse 
ridicule of the Platonic theory (rpaire'Cuv 6pw, Tpair^oT-qra Wov^ 
opio, Diog. Laert., VI. 53 ; compare Schol. in ArisL, 66 b, 45, 
etc. ; Zeller, II 3 . 255) ; for these leaders of the Cynics only 
single things existed in natura rerum. The class concepts are 
only names without content. At the same time it is evident 
that, since the essence of a thing did not seem to them logically 
determinable, they claimed that it was producible only in sense 
perception. Thus they fell into the coarse materialism which 
regards a thing as actual only as the thing can be held in the 
hand. Presumably this fact is meant in the Sophist, 246 a ; 
Thecetetus, 155 e, Phcedo, 79 f. Compare Natorp, Forschungen, 
198 f. 

So much the more was the science of these men limited 
to their theoretically meagre doctrine of virtue. Virtue, 
and it alone, is sufficient to satisfy all strivings for happi- 
ness. Virtue is not only the highest, but the only good, — 
the only certain means of being happy. Over against this 
spiritual and therefore sure possession, which is protected 
against all the changes of the fateful world, the Cynics 
despised all that men otherwise held dear. Virtue alone 
is of worth ; wickedness alone is to be shunned ; all else is 
indifferent (a$id<popov'). 1 From this principle they taught 
the contempt of riches and luxury, of fame and honor, of 
sense-pleasure and sense-pain. But with this radical con- 
sistency, which ever grew sharper with them, they also 
despised all the joy and beauty of life, all shame and con- 
ventionality, family and country. 

The obtrusive moralization of these philosophical beggars 
appears mainly in their coarse witticisms ; and very many anec- 
dotes relate to Diogenes. There is very little of serious inves- 
tigation in their moralizing. Antisthenes appears to assert the 
worthlessness of pleasure, perhaps against Aristippus, and to 
have sought to demonstrate that man with such a conviction, 
even if it be not entirely right, would be proof against the 

1 Diog. Laert., VI. 105. 



144 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

slavery of sense pleasure. 1 In Diogenes this disgust of all 
external goods grew to the philosophical grim humor of a prole- 
tarian, who has staked his cause on nothing. Irrespective of 
the mental culture to which, so far as it concerns virtue, he 
ascribed some worth, 2 he contended against all the devices of 
civilization as superfluous, foolish, and dangerous to virtue. 
Most dubious in all this was the shamelessness of which the 
Cynics were guilty, and their intentional disregard of all the con- 
ventions of sexual relations ; similar too was their indifference 
to the family life and to the state. 3 For the cosmopolitanism in 
which Diogenes took pride 4 had not the positive content of a 
universal human ideal, but sought only to free the individual 
from every limitation imposed upon him by civilization. In 
particular, the Cynics fought against slavery as unnatural and 
unjust, just as already the Sophists had fought. On the other 
hand, it must not remain unnoticed thafAntisthenes, 5 in defiance 
of the judgment of Greek society, declared that work is a good. 
Cynicism finally reckoned also religion among the dStd^opa. All 
mythical ideas and religious ceremonies fall under the class of 
the conventionally determined, the unnatural, and are excusable 
only because they may be regarded as allegorical expressions of 
moral concepts. Positively the Cynics represented an abstract 
monotheism which finds in virtue the true worship of God. 

The fundamental purpose of Cynicism in all these deter- 
minations is to make man entirely independent. The wise 
man to whom virtue, once gained, 6 is a permanent 7 pos- 
session, stands in his complete self-sufficiency 8 over against 

1 See Arist. Eth. Nic, X. 1, 1172 a, 81; on the contrary, Plato 
(Phileb., 44 b) can hardly be regarded as referring to Antisthenes 
(Zeller, II 4 . 308, 1). It is probable that places like the Republic, 583 f., 
refer to Democritus. See below, § 33 and § 31. 

2 Diog. Laert., VI. 68, and elsewhere. 

3 From Diogenes on, the Cynics had wives and children in common. 
(Ibid., 72.) This is only one of the instances that they manifested of 
a levelling radicalism (in distinction from Plato). 

4 Loc. cit. 63: see ibid., 11, 38, 72, 98. 

5 Ibid., 2. 

6 It can also be teachable, but more through practice than through 
scientific instruction. Ibid., 105 f., 70. 

7 Xen. Mem., 1, 2, 19. 

8 Diog. Laert., VI. 11 f. 



THE GKEEK ENLIGHTENMENT 145 

the great mass of fools. His reward is the perfect inde- 
pendence in which he is equal 1 to the undesiring gods. 
In order to be as independent of external goods as possible, 
he reduces his needs to those most external. The less 
one needs, the happier 2 one is. The Cynic Wise Man feels 
himself free from society also; he sees through its preju- 
dices ; he despises 3 its talk ; its laws and its conventions 
do not bind him. The independent lordship of the vir- 
tuous Wise Man does not need civilization and casts it 
aside. The Sophistic opposition of fyvcns and v6fio$ is 
constructed into a principle, and all human limitation by 
statute is unnatural, superfluous, and in part corrupting. 
From the midst of the fulness and beauty of Greek civiliza- 
tion, the Cynic preaches the return to a state of nature 
which would avoid all the dangers of civilization indeed, but 
would forfeit all its blessings. 

30. The joyous wisdom of the life of the Cyrenaics formed 
the completest antithesis to the morose seriousness of the 
virtue of the Cynics. The leader of this school was 
Aristippus of Cyrene, a man of the world, who once 
belonged to the Socratic circle, but at other times led a 
wandering life as a Sophist. Through his daughter Arete 
his conception of life passed down to his grandson, the 
younger Aristippus. Soon after this the school branched 
out with the special interpretations which men like 
Theodoras the atheist, Anniceris, and Hegesias gave to 
the Aristippian principle. Among later representatives 
Euemerus is to be mentioned. 

1 Diog. Laert., VI. 51. 

2 See the self-description of Antisthenes in Xenophon's Symposium, 
4, 34 f. In this respect Cynicism showed that Eudjemonism is logically 
absence of need. From the eudsemonistic point of view, then, the goal is 
the renunciation and suppression of all avoidable desire. 

8 Thus Diogenes accepted the designation of kvcov, which was origi- 
nally a witticism in reference to the seat of the school, the gymnasium, 
Cynosargus. 

10 



146 HISTOBY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

The years of the birth and death of Aristippns cannot be 
very exactly determined ; his life included from thirty to forty 
years in the fifth and fourth centuries (435-360). When he was 
young he was influenced to come to Athens by the fame of 
Socrates, and often during the course of his life did he return to 
that city. That he for some time lived in Syracuse in the court 
of the older and younger Dionysius, that he probably met Plato 
there, cannot well be doubted. The founding of his school in 
his native city, the rich and luxurious Cyrene, occurred prob- 
ably at the end of his life, since all the known adherents to 
the school were considerably younger than he. Compare H. v. 
Stein, De vita Aristippi (Gottingen, 1855), also his Geschichte 
des Platonismus, II. 60 f. 

The technical development of the theory x seems to have been 
completed by the grandson (jxrjTpoStSaKTos), of whom nothing 
further is known. Theodorus was driven out of his home, 
Cyrene, soon after the death of Alexander the Great. He lived 
in exile for some time in Athens and at the court of Egypt, but 
he returned finalty to Cyrene. Anniceris and Hegesias (Tmo-i- 
OavaTos) were contemporaries of Ptolemseus Lagi. Hegesias 
wrote a treatise the title of which Cicero mentioned as 'A-n-oKap- 
rcp(oi/ ( Tusc, I. 34, 84). Euemerus, probably of Messene (about 
300), set his views forth in what were well known to antiquity 
as the Upa dvaypa<f>rj. Compare O. Sieroca, De Euemerus (Konigs- 
berg, 1869). 

The smaller fragments are in Mullach, II. 397 f. Compare J. 
F. Thrige, Res Cyrenesium (Copenhagen, 1878) ; A. Wendt, 
De philos. Cyrenaiea (Gottingen, 1841) ; Wieland (Aristip., 
4 vols., Leipzig, 1800 f.) also gives a graceful and expert 
exposition. 

In his theory of life, Aristippus followed closely the 
teaching of Protagoras, 2 just as Antisthenes followed the 
direction of Gorgias. Indeed he developed the relativism 
of the Protagorean theory of perception to a remarkably 
valuable psychology of the sense feelings. Sense percep- 
tion instructs us only as to our own states (iraQr)), 3 and is 

1 According to Eusebius, Prcep. ev., XIV. 18, 31. Compare, besides, 
Zeller, II 4 . 344. 

2 Which was communicated to him perhaps by his fellow-citizen, the 
mathematician Theodorus (compare Plato, Thecetetus). 

3 Sext. Emp. Adv. math., VII. 191 f. 



THE GREEK ENLIGHTENMENT 147 

not concerned with the causes of those states (ra ireiroiri- 
kotcl ra irdOrf). The causes are not recognizable ; our 
knowledge directs itself only to the changes of our own 
essence, and these alone concern us. Sensations, since 
they are a consciousness of our own condition, are always 
true. 1 In this spirit the Cyrenaics assumed an attitude of 
skeptical indifference to natural science. They followed 
Protagoras in the individualistic turn of this theory when 
they asserted that the individual knows only his own 
sensations, and common nomenclature is no guarantee of 
similarity in the content of the thought. 

That these epistemological investigations of the school of 
Aristippus were used for a basis of their ethics but did not evoke 
their ethics, is proved for the most part by the subordinate posi- 
tion which they received in the later systematizations of the 
school. According to Sextus Empiricus {Adv. math., VII. 11), 
the treatment at this time was divided into five parts : concern- 
ing good and evil ; concerning the states of the soul (irdOr)) ; 
concerning actions ; concerning external causes ; and, finally, 
concerning the criteria of truth (7rio-T€is). 

However, the fundamental problem of the Cyrenaics 
(as of the Cynics) was that concerning the real happiness 
of man, and they emphasized simply the included moment 
of pleasure or displeasure in those states of mind to which 
knowledge is limited. As, however, Protagoras had re- 
ferred the theoretic content of perception to differing cor- 
poreal motions, the Cyrenaics sought to derive also the 
affective tone of the same from the different states of 
motion of him perceiving. 3 Gentle motion (Xela /cLvrjais} 
corresponds to pleasure (^Soz^), violent (r/xx^eta) to dis- 

i Sext. Emp. Adv. math., VII. 191 f. ; farther, Diog. Laert., II. 92. 

2 Sext. Emp. op. cit. 195. 

3 Ensebius, loc. cit. ; Diog. Laert., II. 86 f. Likewise the exposition 
in the PMlebus, 42 f., which brings this teaching directly into connection 
with the ivdvTa pel, presumably refers to Aristippus. Compare Zeller, 
IP. 352 f. 



148 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

pleasure (77-0V0?), rest from motion to absence of pleasure 
and pain (arjSovta teal airovla). Since now these three 
possibilities include the whole range of stimuli, there are 
only two, perhaps three irdOr) : pleasant (ySea), unpleasant 
(aA/yetm)? an( ^ ^ ne spates of indifference between them (ja 
/jLeraijv). 1 Since, however, among these three possible 
states, pleasure alone is worth striving for, rjhovrj is the 
only goal of the will (7-6X09), and accordingly is happiness 
or the Good itself. Whatever gives pleasure is good. 
Whatever creates displeasure is bad. All else is indif- 
ferent. 

The question concerning the content of the concept of 
the Good, which was not really answered by Socrates, was 
answered by these Hedonists, in that they declared pleasure 
to be this content, and indeed all pleasures, whatever their 
occasion, 2 to be indistinguishable. By this only the single 
momentary state of pleasure is meant. The highest, the 
only good, for these Hedonists was the enjoyment of the 
moment. 3 

From these presuppositions the Hedonists concluded, with 
entire correctness, that the distinction of value between single 
feelings of pleasure is determined not by the content or the 
cause, but only by the intensity of the feelings. They asserted 
that the degree of intensity of the bodily feelings is greater than 
that of the spiritual feelings. 4 The later Cyrenaics, particularly 
Theodoras, 5 came therefore to the conclusion that the Wise Man 
need not regard himself restricted by law, convention, or indeed 
religious scruples, but he should so use things as to serve his 
pleasure best. Here, again, the Sophistic antithesis between 
v6[xos and <f>v(Tis 6 is repeated, and the natural individual pleasur- 
able feeling is taken as the absolute motive of action. Still more 
pronounced than in the degenerate phases of Cynicism appeared 
here the egoistic, naturalistic, and individualistic trait which is 
basal in the common problem of both theories. On the other 

1 Sext. Emp. op. cit. 199. 2 Plato, Philebus, 12 d. 

8 See A. Lange, Gesch. des Mater., p. 37, 2 ed. 
4 Diog. Laert., II. 90. 6 Ibid., 99. 

6 See ibid., 93. 



THE GREEK ENLIGHTENMENT 149 

hand, Anniceris 1 sought later to temper this radicalism, and to 
ennoble the desire for pleasure by emphasizing the enjoyment of 
friendship, of family life, and of sociirKorganization as more 
valuable. At the same time he did not lose sight of the egoistic 
fundamental principle, but only carefully refined it. With this 
turn in its course, however, the Cyrenaic philosophy merged into 
Epicurean hedonism. 

Virtue -was, accordingly, for Aristippus identical with 
the ability to enjoy. The utility of science consists in di- 
recting men to the proper satisfaction. Right enjoyment 
is, however, only possible through reasonable self-control 
((f)p6vr)cri<;). 2 Requisite insight for this frees us from preju- 
dice, and teaches us how to use the goods of life in the 
most reasonable way. Above all else it gives to the Wise 
Man that security in himself by which he remains proof 
against weakly yielding to influences of the outer world. 
It teaches him, while in enjoyment, to remain master of 
himself and his surroundings. The problem for both Cynic 
and Cyrenaic was the attainment of this individual inde- 
pendence of the course of the world. The Cynic school 
sought independence in renunciation ; the Cyrenaic in lord^ 
ship over enjoyment, and Aristippus was right when he 
said that the latter was more difficult and more valuable 
than the former. 3 In opposition to the Cynic ideal of re- 
nunciation of the world, the Cyrenaic drew, as his picture 
of the Wise Man, that of the perfected man of the world. 
He is susceptible to the enjoyment of life, he knows what 
animal satisfactions are, and how to prize spiritual joy, 
riches, and honor. In elevated spirit he scrupulously 
makes use of men and things, but even then never forgets 
himself in his enjoyment. He remains lord of his appe- 
tites ; he never wishes the impossible, and even in the few 
happy days of his existence he knows how to preserve vic- 
toriously the peace and serenity of his soul. 

1 Diog. Laert., II. 96 ; see Clemens Alex. Strom., II. 417. 

2 Diog. Laert., II. 91. 3 jfod., 75. 



v/ 



1 



150 HISTOKY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

With these qualifications (reminding ns of Socrates), Aris- 
tippus went beyond the principle of momentary enjoyment of 
pleasure when he, for example, explained activity as repre- 
hensible if, on the whole, it yields more unpleasurableness than 
pleasure. He recommended on this same ground that there be 
universal subordination to custom and law. Theodorus then 
went still further, and sought 1 to find the TtXos of mankind, not 
in individual satisfaction, but in serene disposition (x«/oa). This 
is also already a transition to the Epicurean conception. 

If the principle that only educated men know how to enjo}*' 
happily verified itself in the temperament and circumstances of 
Aristippus, his school on the other hand drew another irresistible 
consequence from the hedonistic principle, viz., pessimism. If 
pleasure is said to give value to life, the greater part of human- 
ity fails of its purpose, and thus life becomes worthless. It was 
Hegesias who dissipated the theory of Aristippus with this doc- 
trine. The desire for happiness cannot be satisfied, 2 he taught. 
No insight, no opulence, protects us from the pain which nature 
imposes on the body. The highest we can reach and even as 
TeA.09 strive for is painlessness, of which death most certainly 
assures us. 3 The particular ethical teachings of Hegesias ap- 
pear more nearly like the precepts of the Cynics than like many 
of the expressions of Aristippus. 

The isolation of the individual shows itself in the hedo- 
nistic philosophers in their indifference to public life. 
Aristippus rejoiced that in his Sophistic wanderings no 
interest in politics infringed upon his personal freedom. 4 
Theodorus 5 called the world his country, and said that 
patriotic sacrifice was a folly which the Wise Man is above. 
These all are sentiments in which the Cynics and Cyre- 
naics agree almost verbally, and in these the decline of 
Greek civilization was most characteristically expressed. 

Eeligious beliefs are among the things which the Hedonists 
shoved one side with sceptical indifference. Freedom from 
religious prejudices seemed to them (Diog. Laert.., II. 91) to 

1 Diog. Laert., II. 98. 2 Ibid., 94 f. 

3 The lectures of Hegesias Treio-iOavaTos are said to have been for- 
bidden in Alexandria because he spoke too much of voluntary death. 
Cicero, Tusc, I. 34, 83. 

4 Xen. Mem., II. 1, 8 f. 5 Diog. Laert., II. 98. 



MATERIALISM AND IDEALISM 151 

be indispensable for the Wise Man. It is not related, however, 
that the}' set up in any way in opposition to positive religion 
another conception. Theodorus proclaimed his atheism quite 
openly. Euemerus devised for an explanation of the belief in 
gods the theory to-daj r called after him, and often accepted in 
modern anthropology in many forms. According to this theory, 
the worship of the gods and heroes is developed from a rever- 
ence of rulers and otherwise remarkable men. (Cicero, De nat. 
deor., I. 42, 119 ; Sext. Emp. Ado. math., IX. 17.) 



5. MATERIALISM AND IDEALISM. 

DEMOCRITUS AND PLATO. 

The Greek Enlightenment had impeded the progress of 
natural science by destroying the naive confidence of the 
Greek in the validity of human knowledge. Science was 
being utilized for practical life, and was in danger of losing 
its dignity and the independence which it had just achieved. 
On the other hand, the prevailing interest of the period 
in psychology had widened the circle of scientific work. 
Logic and ethics had thus been added to physics, — to 
use the classification of the ancients. Conceptions of the 
psychical aspects of life now stood side by side witli those 
of its physical aspects. Man had become conscious of his 
share in the construction of the idea of the world. The 
essence of scientific research was found to consist in the 
examination of concepts and the fundamental proposition 
of science had its formulation in the law of the domina- 
tion of the particular by the universal. At the same time, 
however, the principle was seen that science could never 
give satisfaction if it disregarded the connection between 
human life, as teleologically determined, and the objective 
world. 

The subjective moment had been sundered in its devel- 
opment from the objective, and consequently placed in a 



152 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

certain opposition to it. In the mutual interpenetration of 
the two, and in the tendency of these principles to coalesce, 
did Greek science find the profoundest deepening of its 
conceptual life and the greatest broadening of its practical' 
life. From the Peloponnesian war until Philip of Mace- 
don, when the political life of Greece was already approach- 
ing dissolution, science created its comprehensive systems, 
and perfected itself in its ripest undertakings, which are 
associated with the three names Democritus, Plato, and 
Aristotle. 

In the first place, as preparation for the final synthetic 
statement of Aristotle, appeared the two metaphysical sys- 
tems which expressed the greatest opposition possible within 
the realm of Greek thought : the materialism of Democritus 
and the idealism of Plato. 

Both appeared at that culmination point of Greek culture 
when the flood of Greek life was passing over to its ebb ; 
the Democritan system was about three decades before the 
Platonic, and in a remarkable degree independent of it. 
Each system developed its doctrine on a broad episte- 
mological basis, and each is related both positively and 
negatively to the Greek Enlightenment. Both were met- 
aphysical systems of outspoken rationalism. Each in 
complete exposition compassed the entire range of the 
scientific interest of the time. Finally, in both became 
defined those opposed philosophical views of the world 
which have not been reconciled up to the present time. 

But there are. just as many differences as there are simi- 
larities. Although agreeing with Plato as to the Protago- 
rean theory of perception, Democritus turned back to the 
old rationalism of the Eleatics, while Plato created a new 
ideal Eleaticism out of the Socratic theory of the concept. 
Democritus may therefore appear less progressive and less 
original in this respect than Plato, but we must remember 
that as to their general metaphysics the principle of phys- 



MATERIALISM AND IDEALISM 153 

ics dominated the Democritan system, and the principle of 
ethics the Platonic system. Ethics was incidental in the 
former system, while in the latter physics was the incident. 
In every direction the theory of Democritus shows itself 
to he an attempt to perfect the philosophy of nature by the 
aid of the anthropological theories of the Enlightenment, 
while Platonism was developed as an original recreation 
out of the same problems. The historical fate of both 
these philosophies was also determined by this relationship, 
for the materialism of Democritus was pressed into the 
background from the beginning, while Plato became the 
determining genius of future philosophy. 

The great significance, which — in this exposition in distinc- 
tion from all previous ones — is given to Democritus by making 
him parallel with Plato, is required solely by historical accuracy. 
A similar view was, for that matter, very common among the 
writers of antiquity. As a matter of chronology Democritus, who 
lived between 430 and 360 (§ 31), was about twenty years 
younger than Protagoras and ten years younger than Socrates. 
Although he never came under the direct personal influence of 
the latter, yet it must be taken for granted that a man to whom 
in all antiquity Aristotle alone was comparable in learning, had 
not studied the scientific work of the Sophists in vain. To treat 
him entirely among the pre-Sophistic thinkers, as is customary, 1 
would be justified only if no traces of the influence of the En- 
lightenment are seen in him. We hope to show the contrary in 
the following exposition of his theory. But, however, this ex- 
position will not support the attempt to stamp the Democritan 
theory as a kind of Sophistry, as Schleiermacher and Ritter have 
made it. The strong bias of judgment and vagueness of treat- 
ment that has arisen from this interpretation is sufficiently 
repudiated by Zeller (I 4 . 842 f.). The points of view and theo- 
ries in Sophistic literature of which Democritus certainly did 
make use, were arranged by him synthetically in a unified met- 
aphysic, but such a metaph}*sic lay far outside the horizon of 
the Sophists. On the other hand, it is to be entirety admitted 
that even this materialistic metaphysic played a relatively 

1 Most unfortunate in this connection is the arrangement of Schwegler- 
Kostlin, where the Atomists (as also Empedocles and Anaxagoras) were 
treated before the Eleatics. 3 ed. p. 51 f. 



154 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

unfruitful part in rejuvenating ancient thought. For ancient 
thought took a Platonic tendenc} T , and therefore we have been 
very imperfectly taught concerning the Democritan theory. 
But the case is entirely different when we consider the whole 
European history of science. Since the time of Galileo, Bacon, 
and Gassendi, the Democritan teaching has become the funda- 
mental metaphysical assumption of modern natural science, and 
however sharply we may criticise this theory, we cannot deny 
its significance (Lange, Geschichte des Materialismus, 2 ed., I. 
9 f.). Just in this, however, consisted its historical equality 
with Platonism. 

One of the most striking facts of ancient literature is the 
apparently perfect silence that Plato maintained concerning 
Democritus. 1 This was discussed many times in antiquity. 2 The 
neglect is not possibly explained as hate or contempt. 3 Plato 
was very much interested in men like the Cynics and Cyrenaics 
whose manner of thought must have been far less in s}^mpathy 
with his own than that of Democritus, — with men who must 
have appeared to him far less significant intellectually. That 
Plato knew nothing of Democritus is chronologically a matter of 
greatest improbability. If we also admit that Democritus on 
account of his long journeys entered 4 comparatively late upon his 
literary activity, yet the amount of his literary work requires 
that its beginning be set distinctly before Plato's first works, and 
much the more before Plato's later works : when Plato wrote 
the Symposium, Democritus was seventy-five years old. The 
more remarkable is it that Plato, who otherwise refers to, or at 
least mentions, all the other early philosophers, ignores not only 
Democritus, but also the Atomic teaching. 5 It must therefore 

1 The name Democritus occurs nowhere in Plato's writings, and there 
is nowhere a mention of the Atomic doctrine. When Plato speaks of 
materialism (compare above), he cannot possibly have Democritus in 
mind. 

2 Diog. Laert., IX. 40. 

3 As early as Aristoxenus there appears to have been related the 
foolish story of the designed burning of the Democritan books by Plato. 
Diog. Laert, op. cit. 

4 The time of the composition of his fiiKpos StaKooyxos, Democritus 
himself (Diog. Laert., IX. 41) places at 730 years after the destruction of 
Troy (see Zeller, I 4 . 762), i. e. about 420. 

5 It is significant that both the Sophist and the Parmenides — 
whether they be dialogues written by Plato or originating from the Pla- 
tonic circle — do not mention Atomism, although there were present 



MATERIALISM AND IDEALISM 155 

be concluded, at all events, that Atomism — the writing of 
Leucippus being doubtful — had found no favor within the circle 
of Attic culture. It therefore appears conceivable that the 
Athenians were x entirely indifferent to the essentially scientific 
nature-investigations of Democritus at the time of the Sophists 
and Socrates. In Athens one worked at other things, so that 
Plato even later also made no mention of the writings of the 
great Atomist in developing his own nature-theories. That he 
was not really acquainted with them appears to become more 
and more doubtful. R. Hirzel has pointed out two places {Phil., 
43 f. ; Rep., 583 f.) where references are made to Democritan 
ethics (Untersuchungen zu Cicero s philos. Schriften, I. 141 f.). 
P. Natorp has assented to this (Porschunge?z, 201 t), but he has 
few results in following up " the traces of Democritus in Plato's 
writings" (Arch. f. Gesch. d. Philos., I. 515 f.). It would be 
more satisfactory to seek negative and positive relations to 
Democritus in Plato's later metaphysic (Philebus) 2 and in his 
philosophy of nature dependent on it ( Timceus) . Compare be- 
low the references in the remarks to § 37. 

31. Democritus of Abdera, the greatest investigator of 
nature in antiquity, was born about 460. He was first 
attracted to scientific research in the school of Leucippus, 
probably about the time when Protagoras, who was some 
twenty years his elder, also belonged to that circle. Hav- 
ing the liveliest sense for individual investigation in natu- 
ral sciences, he travelled extensively for many years. This 
led him through Greece, for a longer time into Egypt, and 
over a greater part of the Orient. The exact time of his 
return and the beginning of his literary activity, however, 
must remain a subject for conjecture, and his death can 

important, occasions for it in the Sophist in the discussion of Being, and 
equal occasions in the Parmenides in the dialectic over the One and the 
Many. 

1 In any case the expression of Democritus (Diog. Laert., X. 36) is 
characteristic : rjkBov els 'AOfjvas icdi ovtls fie eyvcoKev. At the time of the 
Sophists of the Peloponnesian war, no one, not even Socrates, had the 
spirit for serious investigation into the nature studies of Democritus. 

2 H. Usener (Preussisches Jahrbuch, LIII. p. 16) has already given 
much attention to this (Philebus, 28 f.). 



156 HISTOEY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

only be approximately set at 360. He settled in his home 
in Abdera. He became highly honored there, and he lived 
surrounded by those who prosecuted their researches under 
his direction. He remained distant and apart from the 
Attic circle of culture, in which little notice was taken of 
him, but he may have been in occasional intercourse with 
the physician Hippocrates, who spent his later years in 
Larissa. 

The life of Democritus is fixed by approximately safe data, 
from his own statement (Diog. Laert., IX. 41) that he was 
forty years younger than Anaxagoras, and from the statements 
he made concerning the time of the composition of his /xiKpos 
8taKocr/xos (§ 30). The acquaintance of Democritus with the 
teaching of both his countrymen, Leucippus and Protagoras, is 
entirely assured b} 7 the testimony of antiquity and the character 
of his philosophy. He doubtless knew the Eleatics as well, and 
one possessed of his great erudition could hardly be ignorant 
of most of the other physicists. Traces here and there in his 
system show this. He did not accept the number theory of 
the Pythagoreans. The friendly relationship to the Pythago- 
reans, attributed to him, 1 can have reference only to his mathe- 
matical 2 researches, and perhaps in part to his physiological 
and ethical undertakings. He also appeared to be very familiar 
with the theories of the younger physicists. But more impor- 
tant for his development of the Atomic theory were, on the 
one hand, his own very extensive and painstaking researches, 
and, on the other, the theory of perception that he obtained from 
Protagoras. Whether he gave much attention to the theories of 
the other Sophists, is still doubtful. They were entirely alien 
to his metaphysical and scientific tendency. But the thorough- 
ness of his anthropology, the significance that he laid on meta- 
physical and ethical questions, and the single points which he 
found valid in them, prove, nevertheless, that he was not unin- 
fluenced by the spirit of his time from which he was otherwise 
somewhat isolated. All these circumstances assign to him the 
place of one who through the subjective period of Greek science 
was the banner bearer of the cosmological metaphysic ; and in 
consequence of his partial acceptance of the new elements was 

1 Diog. Laert., IX. 38. 

2 He prided himself particularly on his mathematical knowledge 
(Clemens Alex. Strom., 304 a). 



MATERIALISM AND IDEALISM 157 

the finisher of the system. He did not receive the slightest 
influence from his great contemporary Socrates. 

The duration of his travels was at all events considerable, 
and his stay in Egypt alone is given as about five years. 1 He 
certainly came to know the greater part of Asia. 2 He got 
nothing philosophical from his travels, especially since his 
thought habitually avoided everything mythical. Nevertheless, 
his gain in breadth of experience and in the results of his col- 
lections was only the greater. His return to Abdera after his 
journeys was the beginning of his teaching, and his literaiw 
work ma} T be dated, in view of the extent of these travels, not 
before 420. 3 Presumably he continued his work into matura 
vetustas (Lucret. De rer. nat., III. 1039). His fellow-citizens 
honored him with the name ao<f>ia. He seems to have been 
little interested in public affairs, and he reached the great age 4 
of ninety or, according to some, of one hundred and nine years. 
His intimacy with Hippocrates (§ 39), which is not improbable 
in itself, has been the occasion for the forgery of letters between 
the two (printed in the works of Hippocrates). 

G-effers, Qucestiones democritece (Gottingen, 1829) ; Papen- 
cordt, De atomicorum doctrina (Berlin, 1732) ; B. ten Brink, 
Verschiedene Abhandlungen in the Philologus, 1851-53, 1870 ; 
L. Liard, De Democrito philosopho (Paris, 1873); A. Lange, 
Geschichte des Mater ialismus, I 2 . (Iserl., 1873) p. 9 f. 

The literary activity of Democritus was certainly very 
great. Even if a part of the works which Thrasyllus had 
arranged in fifteen tetralogies, whose titles are preserved 
in Diogenes Laertius (IX. 45 f.), — even if this part was 
wrongfully ascribed to him (for Diogenes mentions there 

i Diodor., I. 98. 2 Strabo, XV. 1, 38. 

3 It is little probable that Democritus appeared publicly with his 
theory, especially with his discussion of definitions, before the beginning 
of the activity of Socrates (about the time of the beginning of the 
Peloponnesian war). The passage in Aristotle {De part, anim., I. 1, 
642 a, 26), is not to be taken to mean with certainty a chronological rela- 
tionship of the two philosophies, especially when compared with Meta- 
physics, XII. 4, 1078 b, 17. It signifies only that among physicists and 
metaphysicians Democritus first treated definition, although only ap- 
proximately; while the direction of the scientific thought of Socrates 
was turned to ethics. 

4 In reference to the numerous anecdotes about the " laughing phil- 
osopher," see Zeller, I 4 . 766. 



158 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

titles of spurious writings), yet there remains a magnificent 
number besides. In the genuine works all departments of 
philosophy, mathematics, medicine, metaphysics, physics, 
physiology, psychology, epistemology, ethics, aesthetics, and 
technics are represented. Since the writings themselves 
do not lie before us, the question of their genuineness must 
be decided on the score of greatest probability. 

The ancients were proud of the works of Democritus, — 
which by the way were written in Ionian dialect, — not only 
for the wealth of their contents, out of which Aristotle took 
so much for his scientific writings, but also on account of 
their highly perfected form. They placed him in these 
respects by the side of Plato 2 and other great litterateurs. 2 
They admired the clearness of his exposition 3 and the 
effective power 4 of his buoyant style. 

The loss of these writings, which appears to have hap- 
pened at some time from the third to the fifth century after 
Christ, was the most lamentable that has happened to 
the original documents of ancient philosophy. While the 
work of Plato has been preserved in its complete beauty, 
there remains of that of his great antipode only a torso that 
can never be completed. 

Compare Fr. Schleiermacher, Ueber das Verzeichnis der 
Schriften des Dem. bei Diog.Laert., Complete Works, Division 
III., Vol. III. p. 293 f. ; Fr. Metsche, Beitrage zur Quellenhunde 
unci Kritik des Diog. Daert., p. 22. 

The Fragments with annotations by Mullach, I. 330 f. (par- 
ticularly Berlin, 1843) ; W. Burchard, Democriti philosophice de 
sensibus fragmenta (Minden, 1830), Fragmente der Moral des 
Ahderiten Democritus (Minden, 1834) ; Lortzing, Ueber d. ethi- 
schen Fragmente des Democritus (Berlin, 1873) ; W. Karl, 
Democritus in Cicero's philos. Schriften (Diedenhofen, 1889). 

The insecurity in early time in reference to the writings of the 
Atomists can be seen in the fact that while Epicurus seems to 
have called in question the existence of Leucippus (Diog. Laert., 
X. 13), the school of Theophrastus ascribed the /^eyas StaKooy/,os 

1 Cicero, OraL, 20, 67. 2 Ibid., De orat., I. 11, 49. 

3 Ibid., De dicin., II. 64, 133. 4 Plutarch, Quces. conv., V. 7, 6, 2. 



MATERIALISM AND IDEALISM 159 

to Leucippns (Diog., IX. 46). Compare E. Rhode and IT. Diels, 
in Verhand. der JPhilologischen V&rsuchungen, 1879 and 1880, 
and the former in Jahrbuch f. Philologie, 1881. The ethical 
writings, which V. Rose (De Arist. libr. ord., p. 6 f.) holds as 
entirely ungenuine, can be taken in part as genuine (Lortzing), 
especially irepl tvdvfiirjs. Concerning this last writing and the 
use Seneca made of it (De animi tranquillitate) , see Hirzel 
(in Hermes, 1879). 

32. The metaphysical principles of the Democritan 
teaching were given above in the Atomism of Leucippus 
(§ 23) : empty space and numberless self-moving, qualita- 
tively similar atoms. These atoms differ only in form and 
size, and in their union and separation all events are to be 
explained. Their motions were accepted as self-evident; 
but the aWol(D<TLs, the qualitative characteristics of the per- 
ceived thing, and the change arising from its motion must 
remain as inexplicable for Leucippus as for the Eleatics. 
Here Democritus entered armed with the perception theory 
of Protagoras. The perceiy^d^ujiHtie^of tilings arise as 
products of motion. They belong not to things as such, 
but are only the manner in which the subject perceiving at 
the time carries on its representation. They are, therefore, 
necessary signs of the course of the world, but they do not 
belong to the true essence of things. In contrast to abso- 
lute Being, that is, atoms and space, only a relative reality 
belongs to the sense qualities. But this relative reality of 
the images of perception was supposed by*Democritus to be 
derived from absolute reality — the Heracleitan from the 
Eleatic world. The realm of the relative and the changing 
had been known by Protagoras as the subjective, as only the 
world of representation. But the objective world, which 
the Sophist with skeptical indifference had thrust aside, re- 
mained still for Democritus the corporeal world in space. 
When he thus tried to derive the subjective process from 
atomic motions, Atomism became in his hands outspoken 
materialism. 



160 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

The peculiar significance of Democritus in the history of 
Atomism seems to lie more in this materialism than in his com- 
prehensive detailed investigations. He scarcely changed history 
in any way in its fundamental cosmological principles ; but 
the careful development of anthropologj T , which we cannot after 
all ascribe to Leucippus, is clearly his chief work. 

The unifying principle of Atomism, as it has_been_devel- 
oped info a systenrby DemocritusT Ts^the complete develop- 
ment of the concejy T'dT^mecIia mcal necessity in nature. 
Democritus, as well as Leucippus, designated tnTs as avdy/cr), 
or in the Heracleitan manner as el^apfiivr}. E very actual 
event is a mechanics of atoms ; possessing originally a 
motion peculiar to themselves, they get impact * and push 
by contact with one another. Thus processes of union and 
separation come about and these appear as the origin and 
destruction of things. No event is without such a mechan- 
ical cause. 2 This is the only ground for explaining all 
phenomena. Every teleological conception is removed a 
limine, and however much Democritus in his physiology 
referred to the wonderful teleology in the structure and 
functions of organisms, nevertheless he apparently saw 
therein little reason or cause for such teleology in point 
of fact. 

Outspoken antiteleological mechanism is obviously the prin- 
cipal reason for the deep chasm which continued to exist be- 
tween Democritus and the Attic philosophy, even at those points 
concerning which Aristotle recognized the value of the investi- 
gations of Democritus, — the chasm which divided the teaching 
of Democritus from that of Aristotle. This was the reason that 
after the victory of the Attic philosophy, Democritus lapsed into 
oblivion until modern science declared in favor of his principle 
and raised him to recognition. A highly significant moment in 

1 Since empty space which has no real Being cannot be the bearer 
of motion, the transit of motion from one atom to another is possible 
only through contact, and "actio in distans " is excluded. When the 
latter seems to occur, it is explained by emanations, as in the working 
of the magnet (as in Empedocles) . 

2 Ovbev XPW a pa Tr lv yiyverai, dXka Trdura i< Xoyov re ical vn avdyKrjs. 



MATERIALISM AND IDEALISM 161 

the human apprehension of the world, and one never to be left 
out of account, came hereby to clear and distinct consciousness, 
and ruled all Atomism as a methodical postulate. The charge 
raised by Aristotle (Phys., II. 4, 196 a, 24) and before him by 
Plato (Phileb., 28 d) and lately repeated (Ritter), that Democri- 
tus made the world one of chance (ourro/xarov, Tvxq) rests upon 
the entirely one-sided teleological use of this expression. Com- 
pare Windelband, Die Lehren vom Zufall, p. 56 f. 

The Atoms are to be primarily distinguished from each 
other by their form (o-^^a or l&ea), 1 and there are an in- 
finite number of forms. The difference of size 2 is referred 
in part 3 to their difference of form. 4 Motion dwells within 
the atoms, as a necessary irreducible function by which 
each atom, lawless in itself, and each one for itself, is in 
process of flight in empty space. Where, however, several 
of them meet, there arises an aggregation. The shock of 
meeting causes a vortex, 5 which, when once begun, draws 
more atoms into itself from the space surrounding it. In 
this whirl Like find Like. The coarse heavy atoms collect 
in the centre, while the finer and more volatile are pressed 
to the periphery. The motion of the whole mass has a 
balanced revolution however. With reference to the indi- 
vidual objects constructed 6 in this way, the order, position, 

1 It is most characteristic that the Idea, the term that appears in 
Anaxagoras, equally appears in Democritus and Plato for absolute real- 
ity. Of course in a different sense Democritus wrote (Sext. Emp. Adv. 
math., VII. 137) a separate work, nepl lb~ea>u. 

2 At all events, the atoms were thought of as so small that they were 
imperceptible. 

8 Yet in this the different reports do not fully agree, in that occasion- 
ally jieyedos and o~xW a seem co-ordinated, and atoms of similar forms are 
assumed to be of different sizes. See Zeller, I 4 . 777. It is, however, not 
impossible that Democritus had in mind atom-complexes for such cases. 

4 Which, as the only ground of difference, is often quoted. See pas- 
sages in Zeller, I 4 . 776, 1. 

5 Diog. Laert., IX. 31 f. 

6 Arist. Met., I. 4, 985 b, 13. In this place under to ov is to be under- 
stood the thing possessing Being constructed out of atoms. For rdgis and 

11 



162 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

and form of the atoms which constitute them, are the de- 
termining factors. The real qualities of a perceived thing 
are spatial form, weight, solidity, and hardness. Weight x 
depends on the mass of matter, with an allowance for 
the interstices of empty space. Solidity and hardness de- 
pend on the nature of the distribution of matter and empty 
space. 

These are the primary 2 qualities which belong to the 
things in themselves. All others belong to the things only 
so far as they affect the perceiving subject. The secondary 
qualities are not therefore signs of things, but of subjective 
states. 3 Democritus considered color, taste, and temperature 
as belonging to the secondary qualities, and he based their 
subjectivity on the difference of the impression of the same 
object upon different men. 4 

In this theory of the subjectivity of sense qualities (for de- 
tails, see below) Democritus carried out the suggestions of 
Protagoras. His principle of relativity especially shows this. 
His polemic against Protagoras was prompted by the fact that he 
held, like Plato, side by side with the theory of the relativity of 
sense perception, the possibility of a knowledge of absolute real- 
it}'. On this account, even as Plato, he battled against the Pro- 
tagorean theory, in which every perception in this relative sense 

Bkcns could not be marks of distinction between the single atoms, but only 
between the complexes. Compare De generatione et corruptione, I 1 ., 314 a, 
24, in which things are distinguished by the atoms, and their ra£i? and 
Beats. Finally, both of the latter moments (order and position) deter- 
mine the d\\oi(0(Tis, the qualities of particular things. 

1 Heaviness (ftapos) in Atomism very often clearly signifies approxi- 
mately the same as movableness, i. e. the degree of reaction in pressure 
and impact. The direction of the movement in fall is included by the 
term in Epicureanism. 

2 The expressions " primary and secondary qualities " have been in- 
troduced by Locke. The Democritan distinction had been previously 
renewed by Galileo and Descartes. Descartes reckoned solidity among 
the secondary qualities, but Locke placed it back among the primary. 

3 rradr] rrjs alaOrjaecos dWoiovfjLeprjs : Theoph. De sens., 63 f. 

4 Ibid. 



MATERIALISM AND IDEALISM 163 

must be called true. Compare Sext. Emp. Adv. math., VIII. 
56, VII. 139; Plutarch, Adv. col, 4, 2 (1109). Democritus 
also added to his recognition of the subjectively relative the 
assertion of the objectively absolute. Reality, however, con- 
sists of space and geometrical forms of matter, and herein is his 
relationship to the Pythagoreans. Compare V. Brochard, Pro- 
tagoras et Democrit (Arch. f. Gesch. der JPhilos., II. 368 f.). 

Every place of the meeting of several atoms can there- 
fore become the beginning of a vortex movement that is 
ever increasing in its dimensions, and proves to be the point 
of the crystallization of a particular world. On the one 
side it is possible that the small worlds thus formed may 
be drawn into the vortices of a larger system and become 
component parts of it, or on the other hand that they may 
shatter and destroy each other in some unfavorable col- 
lision. Thus there is an endless manifold of worlds, and 
an eternal living-process in the universe, in which the 
single worlds arise and again disappear through purely 
mechanical necessity. 

As to the form of our own world-system, Atomism taught 
that the whole swings in empty space like a ball. The out- 
ermost shell of this ball consists of compactly united atoms, 
and the interior is filled with air, while in the middle, like 
a disc, rests the earth. The process of separation of what 
is stable and what is flowing, is taking place still in the 
earth. The stars are like the earth, except that they are 
much smaller bodies. Their fires are kindled by the rota- 
tion of the whole world, and are nourished by the vapors 
of the earth. Democritus said that the sun and moon are 
of large dimensions, and he spoke of the mountains of the 
moon. Both sun and moon were originally independent 
atom-complexes. They have been drawn into the terres- 
trial system by its revolution, and they were in that way 
set on fire. 

We cannot here go into the detailed description which the 
Atomists made of this division of the elements, as brought about 



164 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

by the vortex movement ; see Zeller, I 4 . 798 f. Nevertheless, 
the interpretation still championed by Zeller, I 5 . 874 f., and 
earlier the universal interpretation, has been shaken by A. Brieger 
(Die Urbewegung der Atome, etc., 1884, Halle; compare De 
atomorum Epieurearum motu principally M. Hertz, p. 888), and 
by II. C. Liepmann (Die MechaniJc der Democritischen Atome, 
Leipzig, 1885) . This earlier interpretation was that the A tomists 
regarded the original motion of the atom in the direction of the 
fall, i. e. downwards as perceived by the senses. Though the 
ancient commentators thus brought the motion of the atoms into 
connection with fiapos (compare above), yet the movement down- 
wards was not expressly mentioned as absolute. Democritus 
could easily designate in the vortex system of atoms the opposi- 
tion between centripetal and centrifugal directions as kotoi and 
avw. According^ he could have investigated the effect of the 
' ' heavy " in the vortex without teaching the conception of the 
Epicureans that " weight" is the cause of motion. 

Atomism has been apparently very much confounded with 
this in later time. However in the sources (probably academic) 
which Cicero (Defin., I. 6, 17) uses, there is the express state- 
ment that Democritus taught an original movement of the atoms 
in infinito inani, in quo nihil nee summum nee infimum nee 
medium nee extremum sit. Epicurus, on the contrary, degraded 
this teaching in assuming that the fall-motion is the natural one 
for bodies. The turbulenta atomorum, concursio, on the other 
hand, here (20) was made a charge against Democritus. Plato 
(Tim., 30 a, klvov/jlcvov TrA-^/x^eXojs /cat aYa/cra)?) appears to me to 
signify this, and doubtless refers here to Atomism. Com- 
pare Aristotle, De coelo, III. 2, 300 b, 16. In his matured rep- 
resentation of endless space, it is remarkable that Democritus 
took a point of view in astronomy that was even for his time 
very antiquated. He did not think of the shape of the earth as 
spherical. He affiliated closely throughout with Anaxagoras, 
never with the Pythagoreans. With this exception his single 
lrypotheses, especially his peculiar meteorological and physical 
hypotheses, make us recognize in him the thoughtful man of 
research and the penetrating observer. We find him- collecting 
many kinds of particular observations and explanations even in 
biology, which Aristotle and others later used. He agreed 
with Empedocles as to the origin of organisms (§ 21). 



/>WM^ 



The most important of the elements was thought by 
Democritus to be fire. It is the most perfect because it is 
the most mobile. It consists of the finest atoms, which are 



MATERIALISM AND IDEALISM 165 

smooth and round 1 and the smallest of all. Its importance 
consisted in its being the principle of motion in organisms, 2 
and hence it is the soul-stuff. 3 For the motion of fire atoms 
is psychical activity.^ Upon this principle Democritus built 
an elaborately developed materialistic psychology, which in 
turn formed the fundamental principle of his epistemology 
and ethics. 

Fr. Heimsoeth, Democritus de anima doctrina (Bonn, 1835) ; 
G. Hart, Zur Seelen- und JErkenntnislehre des Democritus (Leip- 
zig, 1886). It is evident that the theory of fire in Democritus 
goes hack to Heracleitus. Fire plays, however, in Atomism the 
same role in many respects as the mind-stuff vovs in Anaxagoras. 
This is especially true in his explanation of the organic world. 
Fire is indeed not the element that is moved by itself alone, but it 
is the most movable element, and it imparts its motion to the 
more inert material. It must be understood, from these refer- 
ences and relationships, that Democritus also thought that the 
soul and reason were distributed through the entire world, and 
that they could be designated as the divine. 5 Yet it is certainly 
a later explanation which attempts to find in his theory a world- 
soul like the Heracleitan-Stoic world-soul. The isolation by the 
atomists of the motion of the separate fire-atoms has no reference 
to a unitaiy function. 

In plrysiology Democritus considered the soul atoms to be 
disseminated throughout the entire body. He supposed that 
between every two atoms of the material of the human body is 
a fire atom. 6 Thereby he concluded that soul-atoms of differ- 
ent size and motion are associated with different parts of the 
body. He accordingly located the different psychical functions 
in different parts of the bod} T , — thought in the" brain, percep- 
tions in the different sense organs, the violent emotions (opy/j) 
m the heart, and the appetites in the liver. The fire atoms were 
supposed to be held together in the body by the breath, so that 
the diminution of the breath in sleep and death leads to the 
diminution or nearly entire destruction of the ps3 T chical life. 
The spiritual individuality of man is also destroyed at death. 

The peculiarity of the Democritan psychology consisted 
in the fundamental hypothesis that the life of the soul and 

1 Arist. De ccelo, III. 4, 303 a, 14. 2 JMd. De an., I. 2, 404 a, 27. 

3 Compare Zeller, I*. 814. * Arist. he. cit. 405 a, 8. 

5 Cicero, De nat. deor., I. 43, 120. 6 Lucret. De rer. nat.,111. 370. 



166 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

its entire qualitatively determined content has its final 
explanation in the quantitative difference of the motion of 
atoms. The life of the soul is really also only an atom- 
motion, although the very finest and most nearly perfect 
of all motions. 1 This doctrine attempted to elaborate the 
different kinds of atomic motion which form the true 
essence of the different psychical functions. 

This shows itself in the first place in his theory of per- 
ception. Since, for example, the influence of external things 
upon us, which is manifested in perception, is possible only 
by contact according to a mechanical principle, 2 sensation 
can be induced only by emanations of these things pressing 
upon our organs. The sensitive fire-atoms found in these 
organs, are thus set in a motion, which precisely is the sensa- 
tion. 3 Indeed Democritus, with support from the theory of 
Empedocles, concludes that in every organ the stimulating 
motions corresponding to its atomic constitution become 
perception, when a similar motion meets 4 them from the soul 
atoms of the organ. Democritus developed these theories 
for sight and hearing in particular. It is particularly im- 
portant for his entire theory that he called the influences 
emanating from objects "small images" (eiScoXa), in his dis- 
cussion of sight. 

1 That Democritus did not actually deduce the qualitative from the 
quantitative, but only had assertions and good intentions about it, is quite 
obvious. It is of course unattainable ; and this shows the impossibility of 
a logical completion of the materialistic metaphysic. That he, however, 
sought to work it out systematically, makes him the father of materialism. 

2 Therefore touch is the fundamental sense ; compare Arist. De 
sens., 4, 442 a, 29. This conception reappears in the " new psychology," 
— an interesting fact of historical development. 

3 Theoph. De sens., 54 f. 

4 Ibid. 56. Developed in respect to the ear. Here is also the 
modern conception concerning the specific energy of the sense-organs, as 
dependent on the peripheral end-organs being suited to the reproduction 
of different motions. This is approximately the thought of Democritus. 



MATERIALISM AND IDEALISM 167 

Democritus agreed entirely with Protagoras in his as- 
sessment of the episte molog ical value of these sensations. 
Since, then, the motion thus called forth is conditioned not 
only by the transmitting media 1 but also by the indepen- 
dent action of the fire atoms, 2 sensation is no true expres- 
sion for the nature of perceived things. Therein consists 
the subjectivity of sense perception and its inability to give 
true knowledge, and sense does not therefore truly repre- 
sent the atoms and their connection in empty space. Sense 
yields only qualitative determinations, like color, taste, and 
temperature. Democritus associated the formulation of 
this thought with the Sophistic contrast of the law of na- 
ture and the law of man : vo/jurp j\vkv /ecu vo^ico nrifcpov, vojjlg) 
Oep/Jbov, vo/jicp tyvxpov, vofia) XP 0L7 1 • ^ Te V ^ ctro/xa ical /cevov. 8 
Thereby to sense experience objective truth is denied. 4 
Sense experience yields only an obscure view of what is 
actual. True knowledge 5 — viz., of the atoms, which are 
not perceptible to our senses, and of likewise imperceptible 
empty space — can be attained only by thought. 

This rationalism, which in a tj-pical manner stands in contrast 
to the natural science theory of sense perception, arose out of 
the metaphysical need of the Protagorean theory of perception, 
and went beyond it. For a very instructive parallel between 

1 Theoph. De sens., 50. 

2 The Heracleitan-Protagorean moment of this theory lay in this 
counter-motion particularly. 

3 Sext. Emp., VII. 135. Compare Theoph. De sens., 63. He like- 
wise traced the human nomenclature for things back to Beats. See 
Zeller, I 4 . 824, 3. 

4 The occasional strictures about the limitations of human knowledge 
(Diog. Laert., IX. 72 ; see Zeller, I 4 . 823 f.) are, as also in Empedocles, 
to be considered only in this relation. It seems all the more true, 
since Democritus expressly taught that there might also exist for other 
things other methods of perception than those of man. This was con- 
sistent with his whole theory. See Plutarch, Plac, IV. 10 (Dox., 399). 
Compare below. 

5 Sext. Fmp. Adv. math., VII. 139. 



168 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

Plato and Deraocritus, see Sextus Empiricus, Adv. math., VIII. 
56. This rationalism of Democritus corresponds, in fact, entirely 
to that of the old metaphysic and the nature philosophy. The 
only difference is that here in Democritus it is not only asserted, 
but it is also based upon an anthropological doctrine. It is 
further to be observed, and it is also of value in drawing a 
parallel with Plato (Natorp, Forschungen, 207), that Democritus 
yvo)fX7] yvrjo-Lr) refers to space and the mathematical relations pos- 
sible in space. It must remain undecided how far connections 
with the Pythagoreans are to be supposed. Democritus, at all 
events, is as far distant as the P3^thagoreans and the Academy 
from a really fruitful application of mathematics to physics in 
the manner of Galileo. 

But, finally, thought itself, which grasps the truth of 
things, is nothing else than a motion of atoms, and in so 
far is like perception. 1 Furthermore, since thought, as all 
kinds of motion, can arise only from mechanical causes, 
Democritus saw himself driven to the conclusion that the 
voTjai^ as well as the aXaQ'qo'is presupposes 2 impressions of 
elh(o\a from the outer world upon the body. In view of 
the documents that lie before us, it is only supposititious 3 
how Democritus more exactly represented to himself the 
process of thought. It is certain 4 that he traced dreams, 
visions, and hallucinations to elhtoka as their causes. 
These are also ideas introduced indeed through bodily im- 
pressions, but not by the customary path of perception 

1 Although in itself not equivalent on the higher planes. It is like- 
wise dissimilar to all the functions of the fire atoms. 

2 Plutarch, Plac, IV. 8 (Box., 395). 

3 Zeller (I 4 . 821, 2) thinks that Democritus did not attempt such an in- 
vestigation concerning the psychological principle in order to establish the 
preference of thought to perception. Zeller's view seems improbable, in 
the first place, on account of Democritus' elaboration elsewhere of his 
epistemological and psychological doctrine; in the second place, on 
account of the importance of the matter for his whole system ; finally, 
because of the traces of such undertakings in his preserved fragments. 
Compare Gr. Hart, Zur Seelen- und Erkenntnislehre des Dem., p. 1 9 f . 

4 Plutarch, Qucest. conv., VIII. 10, 2; Cic. Be div., II. 67, 137 f. 



MATERIALISM AND IDEALISM. 169 

through the organs of sense. 1 Democritus is so far from 
holding these images as purely subjective that he ascribes to 
them rather a kind of presentient truth. 2 He looks upon the 
process distinctly after the analogy of the sense of sight as 
the name ecScoXa shows. ec&ooXa, finer than those influencing 
the sense, create a correspondingly finer motion of the 
soul atoms, and thus arises our dream knowledge. If now 
Democritus regarded thought as the finest motion of the 
fire atoms, he must have looked upon the finest eihwXa also 
as the stimuli of that motion, viz. those elScoXa in which 
the true atomistic form of things is copied. Thought is 
accordingly an immediate knowledge 3 of the most minute 
articulation of actuality, — the theory of atoms. These 
finest eiScoXa remain ineffectual to the greater portion of 
humanity compared to the gross and violent stimulations 
to the sense organs. The Wise Man, however, is alone 
sensitive 4 to them, but he must avert his attention from 
the senses 5 in order to conceive them. 

Compare E. Johnson, Der Sensualismus des Demokrit, etc. 
(Plauen, 1868) ; Natorp, JForschwigen, 164 f. To designate De- 
mocritus as a sensualist is only justified by the fact that he thought 

1 It does not appear from the preserved passages exactly clear 
whether Democritus in his explanation of dreams thought that the 
et'ScoXa press in during sleep without the help of the sense organs ; or 
that they were those that had pressed in during wakefulness, but on 
account of their weakness had first come into activity during a state of 
sleep. Perhaps he had both conceptions. 

2 According to Plutarch (op. cit.), the dream is able to reveal a 
strange life of the soul to the dreamer. 

3 Thought in analogy to sense of sight ; pointed out first by Brandis 
(Handbuch, I. 333 f.) and abandoned by him (Gesch. d. Entio., I. 145) ; 
analogy revived by Johnson. This analogy is to the effect that thought 
is an immediate inner perception or the intuitive conception of absolute 
reality. 

4 Compare the somewhat dark passage, Plutarch, Plac, IV. 10: 
ArjfxoKpiTos nXciovs elvai alo-drjo-eis rrepl ra akoya £<5a kol rrepi tovs o~o(povs 
Kai rvep\ tovs $eov<:. 

6 See Hart, op. cit. p. 19 f. 



170 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

that the ground of the stimulation and the functioning of thought 
is analogous to that of (sight) perception. The distinguishing 
characteristic of Democritus is, however, this, that thought 
could go on without the help and therefore to the exclusion of 
sense-activity. Therefore he is an outspoken rationalist. 1 
These passages in which it is apparently ascribed to Democ- 
ritus that he drew conclusions from <paLv6[xeva concerning the 
voyrd (Sext. Emp., VII. 140; Arist. De an,, I. 2, 404 a, 27), 
prove only on the one side that he undertook to explain phenom- 
ena from atomic movement : rw aXXotovaOau ttolu to aio-davto-6 at 
(Theoph. De sens., 49). On the other side these passages show 
that he tried to have the theories verify themselves through 
their ability to explain phenomena, and to derive appearance 
from absolute actuality. \6yoi irpos ttjv aiaOrjo-iv oixoXoyovfieva 
Xiyovres (Arist. De gen. et corr., I. 8, 325 a). 

33. The EtMcs of Democritus, like his epistemology, has 
its roots in his psychology. Feeling and desire are /civ^o-eis, 
motions of the fire atoms. As, however, he established in 
theory this difference of value, — that only obscure recog- 
nition of phenomena takes place in the gross stimula- 
tions of the senses, and that insight into the true form of 
things is solicited by the gentlest movement of thought, — so 
in practice he applied the same distinction. As in meta- 
physics knowledge is the TeA,o?, 2 in ethics happiness (evhai- 
/jLovia) is the re\os. In the attainment of this happiness 
there is also here the fundamental difference between ap- 
pearance and truth. 3 The joys of sense deceive, and only 

1 Just as all pre-Sophistic philosophers (Heracleitus, Parmenides) 
are found to have their epistemological rationalism united with a distinct- 
ively sensualistic psychology of thought. Compare Windelband, Gesch. 
d. Philos., § 6. 

2 Or ovpos, fr. 8 and 9. With this establishment of a unifying prin- 
ciple for the ethical determination of value, Democritus stood uniquely 
by the side of Socrates. Practically he differed from Socrates but 
little. Compare Ziegler, Gesch. der Ethik, I. 34. Fortunately, ibid. 
36, there is an allusion indicating that Democritus' pupil, Anaxarchus, 
was called EvdaifxoviKos. 

3 The opposition of vopos and cpvais prevails also here. Only through 
human convention (vo/aco) desires are of value. The Wise Man lives 
here cpvaei. 



MATERIALISM AND IDEALISM 171 

those of the spirit are true. This fundamental thought 
shows itself through all the ethical expressions of Demo- 
critus as a principle fully parallel to his epistemological 
principle. Also here he held the principle as authoritative 
that violent and stormy 1 motions disturb the equilibrium of 
the soul, i. e. disturb the fire atoms. Such motions bring 
with them a state of agitation of the senses. Therefore, in 
spite of their apparent momentary pleasure, such motions 
lead in reality to lasting dissatisfaction. Fine and gentle 
motions of thought have, on the contrary, true pleasure in 
themselves. 

Compare Lortzing, Ueber die ethischen Fragmenta Demo- 
crit's (Berlin, 1873) ; R. Hirzel in Hermes (1879, p. 354 f.) ; F. 
Kern, in Zeitschr. fur Pkilos. u. philos. Kritik (1880, supple- 
mentary part) ; M. Heinze, Per Eadamonismus in der griech. 
Philos. (Leipzig, 1873). The attempt to reduce all qualitative 
to quantitative relations, which very properly gives a unique 
nlace in ancient philosophy to the Democritan atomism, becomes 
Tlie capstone of his ethics. The jjuKpal klvyjo-cls contain true 
happiness in the moral as well as in the intellectual world, and 
the fxeydXac are disturbing and deceptive. For particulars, see 
especially G. Hart, op. cit., p. 20 f. If then the value of the 
psychical functions is made dependent in both directions upon 
the intensity of atomic motion, and indeed in inverse ratio, 
then it is difficult not to think of the similar purpose in the 
hedonism of Aristippus, who made the same distinction, in a 
coarser way to be sure, in estimating the value of the delights 
of the senses. It must remain undecided whether Democritus 
directly influenced the Cyrenaics, or whether there had been a 
common source for the two in the doctrine of Pythagoras. 

The pleasures of sense are relative. They have a phe- 
nomenal 2 but not an actual value, viz., the value belonging 

1 Fr. 20 (Stob. Eel, I. 40). 

2 Plato, Rep. 584 a. The above representation is supported prima- 
rily by Plato's Republic, 583 f., and Philebus, 43 £., whose references to 
Democritus appear to Hirzel and Natorp to be certain (see above). 
In both instances it is remarkable to see the exposition colored by 
medical expressions and examples which probably belong to the writing 
of Democritus (nepi evdvuirjs). 



172 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

to cf)v<rL$. Sense pleasures differ like the perceptions 
in different individuals, and depend on circumstances. 
Every sense pleasure is conditioned 1 only by the cessa- 
tion of unpleasurable feeling in the desire concerned, and 
therefore loses its apparently positive character. True 
happiness consists in peace (rjav^a) of the soul, and 
Democritus generally uses evOv/jbla to designate it. But 
he also uses many other expressions, as ada/juftla, arapagla, 
aOavjjLaala, apfiovla, %vjuL/jL€Tpta, 2 especially eveo-rco. He has 
for it a very happy simile of a calm of the sea (yaXrjvr]^. 
By every excess 3 of excitation thought is aroused to 
aWocjypovelv 41 and feeling to stormy unrest. The right 
condition of gentle harmonious motion of the soul-atoms 
is possible only through intellectual knowledge. Out of 
this flows the true happiness of man. 

In these definitions the content of the ethics of Democ- 
ritus is fully on a level with the ethics of Socrates. Th^ 
ethics of Democritus intimately connected the social worth 
of man with his intellectual refinement. The ground of 
evil is lack of cultivation. 5 Happiness therefore con- 
sists not in worldly goods, 6 but in knowledge, 7 in the har- 
monious leading of the life, in a life of temperance and 
self-limitation. 8 The social worth of a man is to be esti- 
mated 9 by his mental calibre and not by his actions ; and 
he who acts unjustly is more unhappy than he who suffers 
unjustly. 10 Everywhere he regarded the peace of man to 
be within himself {eveard)). He looked upon the with- 
drawal from the sense-desires and upon the enjoyment of 
the intellectual life as true happiness. 11 

1 Fr. Mor. 47. 

2 Both the last terms have a Pythagorean sound. 

3 Fr. 25. 4 Theoph. Be sens., 58. 
5 Fr. 116. 6 Fr. 1. 

7 Fr. 136. 8 Fr. 20 ; compare 25. 

9 Fr. 109. 10 Fr. 224. 

ii It must remain uncertain to what extent Democritus distinguished 



MATERIALISM AND IDEALISM 173 

The numerous single sentences which have been preserved 
from. Democritus suit entirely the quality of this noble and high 
view of life. Since they all, however, have been transmitted in 
a disconnected way, it can no longer be determined whether 
and how they have a systematic derivation from the developed 
fundamental principle. In particular is to be emphasized the 
high worth that Democritus places in friendship, 1 and on the 
other hand his full understanding of the importance of civil life, 
from which he seems to have deviated only in reference to the 
Wise Man 2 with a cosmopolitanism analogous to that of the 
Sophists. Yet there remains here much that is doubtful. 

Democritus maintained an attitude of indifference to religious 
belief, which was consistent with his philosophy. He ex- 
plained the mythical forms, in part by means of moral alle- 
gories, 3 in part by nature-myth 4 explanations. He accepted, in 
connection with his theory of perception, essentially higher an- 
thropomorphous beings imperceptible to the senses, but influential 
in visions and dreams. He called these daemons etSwXa, an ex- 
pression employed elsewhere in his epistemology for the emana- 
tions from things. They are sometimes benevolent, sometimes 
malevolent. 5 

The school at Abdera disappeared quickly after Democritus 
died. Even in its special undertaking, it performed, 6 after the 
leader fell, scarcely anything worth mentioning. Its philosophi- 
cal tendenc} T , however, became more and more sophistic, 7 and 
thereby led to Skepticism. Metrodorus of Chios and Anax- 
archus of Abdera, the companion of Alexander on his Asiatic 
campaign, are the notable names. Through the influence of 
Pyrrho, a pupil of Metrodorus, the Abderite philosophy became 
Skepticism, and the contemporaneous Nausiphanes formed the 
connection between it and Epicureanism. 

between the perfect happiness of the Wise Man won through the yvrjair) 
yvafirj, and the peace of the ordinary man obtained by temperance and 
self-control. Compare Th. Ziegler, op. cit., who wishes to put into a 
similar relationship both of the chief ethical writings, nepl (vdvfjLirjs 
and viroQrjKai. 

i Fr. 1G2 f. 2 Fr. 225. 

3 Clemens, Cohort., 45 f. 

4 Sext. Emp. Adv. math., IX. 24. 5 Ibid. 

6 The astronomical tenets of Metrodorus seem to indicate a relapse 
into Heracleitan ideas. Compare Zeller, I 4 . 859. 

7 For the theoretical skepticism of Metrodorus, compare Eusebius, 
Prcep. eu., XIV. 19, 5. Whatever is reported of the ethical tendency of 
Anaxarchus reminds one of Hedonism, and Cynicism as well. 



174 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

84. Democritus' consummation of the metaphysics of 
science by means of materialistic psychology formed in the 
total growth of ancient thought only an early dying branch. 
The principal tendency of Greek thought perfected itself 
nearly contemporaneously in the ethical immaterialism of 
Plato at the centre of Attic civilization. The same ele- 
ments of the earlier science, which were fundamental to 
the theory of Democritus, were combined afresh and in an 
entirely different manner in the Platonic system under the 
influence of the Socratic principle. Heracleitus, Parmeni- 
des, Anaxagoras, Philolaus, and Protagoras furnished the 
material for the theory of Plato, but it was worked over in 
an entirely original manner from the point of view of con- 
ceptual knowledge. 

Plato, the son of Aristo and Perictione, was born in 
Athens in 427, and came from a distinguished and pros- 
perous family. Endowed with every talent physical and 
mental, he received a careful education, and he was 
familiar at an early age with all the scientific theories that 
interested Athens at that time. The political excitement 
of the time made the youth desire a political career. The 
Peloponnesian war was raging, and during its progress the 
internal and external affairs of Athens were becoming 
more and more precarious. On the other hand, the rich 
artistic development of the time was irresistibly attractive, 
and Plato was led to try poetry in many of its forms. Both 
Plato's political and poetic longings appear to follow him 
in his entire philosophy : on the one side in the lively, al- 
though changing interest that his scientific work always 
shows in the problems of statecraft, and on the other in 
the artistically perfected form of his dialogues. But both 
are subordinate to his entire absorption in the personality 
and teaching of the character of his great master Socrates, 
whose truest and most discriminating pupil he remained 
for many years. 



MATERIALISM AND IDEALISM 175 

Of the general works concerning Plato and his theory there 
are to be named W. G. Tennemann, System der plat. Philos., 
4 vols. (Leipzig, 1792-5) ; Fr. Ast, Fiction's Leben u. Schriften 
(Leipzig, 1816) ; K. F. Hermann, Gesch. u. Syst. der plat. 
Philos. (Heidelberg, 1839) ; G. Grote, Plato and Other Com- 
panions of Socrates (London, 1865) ; H. v. Stein, Sieben Bucher 
zur Gesch. des Platonismus (Gottingen, 1861 f.) ; A. E. Chaignet, 
La vie et les ecrits de Plato (Paris, 1871) ; A. Fouillee, Laphilo- 
sophie de Plato (4 vols., 2d ed., Paris, 1890). 

The nearest pupils of Plato, especially Hermodorus, dealt with 
his life ; also the Peripatetics, Aristoxenus and others. The 
expositions of Apuleius and Olympiodorus (published in Cobet's 
edition of Diogenes Laertes) have been preserved. Besides 
there is a life of Plato in the Prolegomena (printed in Hermann's 
edition of the Platonic writings). The collection of spurious 
letters printed with his works is a very untrustworthy source. 
Only the seventh among them is of any worth. K. Steinhart 
has published a life of Plato (Leipzig, 1873), which ranks well 
among the new works. 

On his father's side, Plato had the blood of the Codrus family 
in his veins, and on his mother's he traced his lineage back to 
Solon. 1 He himself was called after his grandfather, Aris- 
tocles, and is said to have been called Plato for the first time by 
his gymnasium teacher on account of his broad frame. For the 
determination of the year of his birth, the statements of Her- 
modorus are decisive (Diog. Laert., III. 6), that when he went to 
Euclid at Megara in 369, immediately after the death of Socrates, 
he was twenty-eight years old. That his birthday was celebrated 
in the Academy on the seventh Thargelion emanates possibly 
from the Apollo cult, to which many of the early myths about 
the philosopher seemingly are referable. 

That Plato was early remarkable in every physical and musi- 
cal art is entirely in agreement with every part of the picture 
of his personality. The particular accounts about his teachers 
(Zeller, II 4 . 394) throw no light on his own scientific significance. 
His early acquaintance with the Heracleitan Cratylus is attested 
by Aristotle. 2 At what points of time in his development the 
teachings of the other philosophers whose influence is traceable 
in his works were known to him, cannot be ascertained. 
Early in his career Heracleitus, the Eleatics, Protagoras and 
other Sophists, and later 3 Anaxagoras and the Pythagoreans 
were authorities for him. 

1 It is improbable that his family was poor, as many later writers 
would have it. His style of life indicates the contrary. 

2 Met., I. 6, 987 a, 32. 3 Indeed, relatively late : see below. 



176 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

Plato was hostile to the democracj 7- , as was consistent with 
the traditions of his family and the political views of his teacher, 
Socrates. Yet his political inclinations, as he has laid them 
clown in his works, diverge so far from historic aristocracy that 
his complete abstinence from public life in his native city appears 
highly conceivable. That he concerned himself in his 3011th, 
as was the custom, with epic and dramatic poetry, is not to be 
doubted, notwithstanding the uncertainty of the particular tra- 
ditions about it. 

Concerning the time when he became acquainted with Socrates, 
an acquaintance that certainly eclipsed all the early interests of 
the youth, there is nothing very definite to be said. If he were 
then, according to Herniodorus, 1 twenty years old, there remained 
very little room for his poetic attempts, which ceased when he 
began philosophy. It is probable that Plato had formulated the 
content of the separate conversations in the earliest dialogues 
during Socrates' life. 2 

After the death of Socrates, Plato went first, with other 
pupils of the master, to Euclid at Megara. He soon after 
began a journey which took him to Cyrene 3 and to Egypt, 
and he seems to have returned to Athens from this journey 
about 395. Here he apparently already began, if not his 
teaching, yet the part of his literary work in which he 
opposed the different tendencies of the Sophists. About 
the end of the first decade of the fourth century, he began 
his first tour to Magna Graecia and Sicily, which not only 
brought him into personal touch with the Pythagoreans, but 
also led him to the court of the elder Dion of Syracuse. 
Here he was in close intimacy w T ith Dion, and was thereby 
drawn into the strife of political parties which ruled the 
court. Matters became dangerous for him, for the tyrant 
grew hostile and treated him as a prisoner of war. He 
delivered Plato over to the Spartan ambassador, and the 

1 Diog. Laert., III. 6. 

2 The statement concerning the Lysis, ibid. 35, is in itself by no 
means improbable. 

s His intimate relations with the mathematician Theodoras, the pupil 
of Protagoras (see Thecetetus) , are somehow connected with his stay in 
Cyrene ; possibly also his essentially polemic relation to Aristippus. 



MATERIALISM AND IDEALISM 177 

latter sent the philosopher to the slave-market of iEgina, 
where a man from Cyrene bought his freedom. About 387 
Plato returned to Athens, and founded his scientific society 
soon after in the Academy, a gymnasium. Here, to a con- 
tinuously increasing band of friends and youths, he imparted 
his philosophic theories, sometimes in dialogues, sometimes 
in longer discourses. 

The only data for this part of his life which are not reported 
alike everywhere in the sources have probably been given their 
definitive statement by Zeller, II 4 . 402. It is probable that 
Plato's Wa?iderjahre, from the death of Socrates until his failure 
in Syracuse, were not without interruption, and that he mean- 
while had already begun his instruction at Athens, although to 
a small circle, and not yet to the closed and organized Academy. 
The literary activity of Plato in the interim (395-91) was essen- 
tially only a defence of the Socratic doctrine, as Plato conceived 
it and had begun to develop it against Sophistry, which was 
flourishing more than ever. Whether or not Plato left his home 
a second time for political reasons, during the Corinthian war, 
when Athens was again ruled by the democracy, 1 is uncertain. 
He probably at that time attempted in Syracuse, perhaps in 
collusion with the Pythagoreans, to bring his political principles 
into vogue by the exercise of influence upon the tyrant. For 
the treatment which he experienced at the hands of Dionysius, 
who seems to have threatened his life, is hardly to be explained 
by any mere unpopularity of his ethical parrhesia, but is, on the 
contrary, natural enough if Plato entered politics. 

At first Plato probably taught in the Socratic manner hy con- 
versation, and he sought to construct concepts with the help of 
his pupils. But the more his own opinions became finished, and 
the smaller the organization of the Academy grew in numbers, 
the more didactic became his work, and the more had it the form 
of the lecture. In the successive dialogues the work of the inter- 
locutor becomes fainter and less important. Later Aristotle and 
the other pupils published lectures of Plato. 

The philosopher allowed himself only twice to be induced 
away from his teaching in the Academy, which teaching 

1 That about this time public attention turned again to Socrates, is 
shown by the circumstance that even then the rhetorician Polycrates 
published an attack upon Socrates. See Diog. Laert., II. 39. 

12 



178 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

lasted the entire second half of his life ; and then only 
through the hope of fulfilling his political ideals. After 
the death of the elder Dionysius, he sought, with the help 
of Dion, to influence the younger Dionysius. He had no 
success in the first attempt in 367, and the third Sicilian 
journey in 361 brought him into great personal danger 
again. In this journey his special effort was to reconcile 
Dion and Dionysius the younger. Only the energetic effort 
of the Pythagoreans who, with Archytas at their head, repre- 
senting the power of Tarentum, seems to have saved him. 

Plato died in 347, in his eightieth year. He was revered 
by his contemporaries, and celebrated as a hero by posterity. 
He was a perfect Greek and a great man, — one who united 
in himself all the excellences of bodily beauty with intel- 
lectual and moral power. He also ennobled the aesthetic 
life of the Greeks with a depth of spirituality which assured 
to him an influence for a thousand years. 

The political character of the second and third Sicilian journeys 
is beyond doubt, but that does not preclude the supposition that 
Plato at that time, in his intercourse with the Pythagoreans, was 
pursuing his scientific work. At any rate, the number theory 
exercised an increasing but scarcely a healthy influence on part 
of the development of his philosophical thought. On the other 
hand, his influence on the Pythagoreans was very fruitful. 

The reports of the ancients as to the length of life and the 
time of death of the philosopher differ only a little. They are 
easily reconciled in the statement that Plato died in the middle 
of the year 347. It is also said that he died suddenly in the 
middle of a marriage feast. The report of Cicero— scribens est 
mortuus — signifies only that Plato was still laboring to perfect 
his works at the time of his death. The aspersions upon his 
character in later literature arose from the animosities of the 
scholastic controversy. They are refuted, however, by the 
respectful tone with which Aristotle always spoke of Plato, 
even when he was battling against his theory. It is not entirely 
impossible that in later time, when Aristotle went his own way 
and Plato became more Pythagorean in his m} T sticism, that the 
relations between the two became less close and somewhat in- 
harmonious. 



MATERIALISM AND IDEALISM 179 

We can get the most reliable picture of Plato from his own 
writings. They show in their author the realization of the 
Socratic ideal : his scientific investigations are carried on 
with all the seriousness of a moral endeavor seeking its 
own fulfilment. The serene beauty of his compositions 
and the perfect purity of his 'diction reveal the artist who 
from the heights of the culture of his time gives to the 
thought of that time a form that transcends the time. 
With the exception of the Apology, they are dialogues in 
which the conversation and the deciding word, if a decision 
is reached, fall in by far the majority of cases to Socrates. 
In reference to their content, only a few of the dialogues 
have a fixed plan of philosophical research. Rather, almost 
always threads of thought were spun from the chief prob- 
lem in any direction and followed to the end. On that 
account the dialogues are not scientific treatises, but works 
of art in which scientific " experiences " are reproduced in 
an idealized form. One remarks this aesthetic character in 
Plato's use of myths, which appear usually at the beginning 
or end of an investigation, where Plato cannot or will not 
develop his thought conceptually. The story form of the 
argument enhances its poetic power. 

By the term " experiences," which are elaborated in Plato's 
dialogues, we do not mean so much the conferences which the 
poet philosopher employed or devised as the outer scenery of 
his works, but the discussions in which he himself led in the 
circle of his riper friends. 1 Such a dialogue as the Parmenicles 
bears even the character of being the aesthetic resume of actually 
fought out word-battles. The Platonic authorship of these is 
extremely doubtful, but they must have originated in the Pla- 
tonic circle. The actually occurring conversation is idealized 
and universalized in these dialogues, being placed in the mouth 
of Socrates and other persons, some of whom had already 
died. Plato shows here his imagination by his selection and 

1 This certainly happened later also, when scholastic teaching and 
practice had place in the Academy, in which teaching the preserved 
diaereses and definitions may have been used. 



180 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

adornment of the situations under requirements of fiction, in 
which situations these conversations purport to have taken 
place ; by the plastic characterizations of the champions of 
various theories, in which he uses frequently the effectual means 
of persiflage ; and also by the delicate structure of the conver- 
sation, which forms itself into a kind of dramatic movement. 
Countless allusions, of which only a very few are understood 
by us, apply to the historical persons figuring in the dialogue, 
and in part perhaps to the companions of Plato. 

In the undoubtedly genuine Platonic dialogues, Socrates is 
made the speaker of Plato's owu views. The only excep- 
tions are the latest, Timceus and Critias, and the Laws. In 
the first two the reason for this exception is that Plato deals 
only with the mythical and not with sure knowledge. In the 
Laws the head of the school has become an authority and 
speaks as such. Usually the dramatic scenery in the first dia- 
logues is much more simple and less ornate ; in the works of 
his dicfuj, the scenic effect is fully developed ; in the JPhilebus, 
on the contrary, and in the other later works, it sinks back 
again to a schematic investiture. The conversations are partly 
"give and take," partly repetitions whereby sometimes the chief 
dialogue is introduced into the discussion of another dialogue. 
Although the earlier dialogues follow, on the whole, the second 
principle, and the later the first, yet these principles are not safe 
criteria for the chronological succession * of the dialogues. 

The reports of antiquity that Plato divided 2 philosophy into 
dialectics, physics, and ethics can refer only to his method in 
the Academy. This division in the dialogues can be made 
neither directly nor indirectly. On the whole, epistemological, 
theoretical, metaphysical, ethical, and sometimes physical mo- 
tives are so interwoven that while here and there the one or the 
other interest predominates (in Thecetetus the epistemological 
and theoretical ; in the Republic the ethico-political), never does 
a conscious sundering of the realms of the problems take place. 
This belongs moreover to the poetic rather than the scientific 
character of Plato's literary workmanship. 

Concerning the myths of Plato, compare especially Deuschle 
(Hanau, 1854) and Volquardsen (Schleswig, 1871) ; concerning 
the general character of Plato's literary activity, see E. Heitz 
(O. Muller's Literaturgeschichte, II. 2, 148-235). 

1 In Thecetetus this innovation is made, and reason is given for it 
(143 b, c). The Phaido also, which was certainly a late dialogue, and 
the -probably later Symposium returned to the older method. 

2 Cicero, Acad.,1. 5, 19. Compare Sext. Emp. Adv. math., VII. 16. 



MATERIALISM AND IDEALISM 181 

There is no ground for supposing that any one of the 
writings of Plato has been lost. On the other hand, the 
transmitted collection contains many that are undoubtedly 
questionable and ungenuine. We may take the following 
as certainly Platonic : the Apology, Crito, Protagoras, 
Grorgias, Cratylus, Meno, Themtetus, Phaidrus, Symposium, 
Phcedo, Republic, Timceus , and also probably Philebus and 
the Laws. The following are certainly not genuine : Alci- 
biades II, Anterastce, Demodorus, Axiochus, Epinomis, 
Eryxias, Sipparchus, Clitophon, Minos, Sisyphus, Theages, 
and the small studies nrepl Sitcalov and irepl aperr)^. Among 
the doubtful, Parmenides, Sophist, and Politieus are of 
special importance. The criterion of their genuineness is 
chiefly the testimony of Aristotle, who mentions many of 
the writings with the name of Plato and title of the book, 
many only with either name or title, many without certain 
reference to Plato. To a canon established in this way, 
there are to be added writings that Plato himself cites, or 
whose form and content make them Plato's. 

Just as important as the question of the genuineness of 
the writings of Plato, is the question of their order and con- 
nection. The chief controversy over the order of the writ- 
ings is between the Systematic and Historical theories. The 
Systematic theory, advocated by Schleiermacher and Munk s 
finds a plan in the whole of Plato's writings, — a consistent 
system organized at the beginning. Hermann and Grote 
advocate the Historical theory, which makes each dialogue 
a stage in the development of Plato's thought. Beside the 
general reasons for the Historical theory, there are the nu- 
merous variations in the establishment, development, and 
application of the fundamental thesis, - - a thesis which is 
clearly present although undergoing transformation. In 
both directions the body of the Platonic writings presents 
one of the most difficult problems of antiquity, — insolv- 
able in some particulars; yet time has brought about a 



182 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

pretty complete agreement concerning the more important 
ones. 

The works of Plato were arranged and published in antiquity 
by Aristophanes of Byzantium partially in trilogies, and by 
Thrasylus in tetralogies. In the Renaissance the}' were excel- 
lently translated into Latin b}^ Marsilius Ficinus, and printed in 
Greek text at Venice in 1513. Further publications of the 
works are those by Stephanus (Paris, 1578) which has been 
cited, the Zweibrucken edition (1781 f.), that of Imman. Bekker 
(Berlin, 1816 f.), Stallbaum (Leipzig, 1821 f., 1850), Baiter, 
Orelli, and Winkelmann (Zurich, 1839 f.), K. Fr. Hermann 
(Leipzig, Teubner, 1851 f.), Schneider and Hirschig (Paris, 
1846), M. Schanz (Leipzig, 1875 f.). 

Translations with introductions : Schleiermacher (Berlin, 
1804 f.), Hieron. Muller and Steinhart (Leipzig, 1850 f.), V. 
Cousin (Paris, 1825), B. Jowett (Oxford, 1871), R. Bonghi 
and E. Ferrai (Padua, 1873 ff.). 

The most nearly complete and comprehensive picture of the 
special literature which is not to be reproduced here and also 
concerning the single dialogues, is given by Ueberweg-Heinze, I 7 . 
138 f. The chief writings on the subject are as follows : Jos. 
Socher ( Ueber Platon's Schriften (Munich, 1820) ; Ed. Zeller, 
Plat. Studien (Tubingen, 1839) ; F. Susemihl, Prodromus plat. 
Forschungen (Gottingen, 1852) ; Genetischen Fntwickelungen 
der plat. Philos. (Leipzig, 1855-60) ; F. Suckow, D. wissensch. 
u. kiinstlerlische Form der plat. Schriften (Berlin, 1855) ; E. 
Munk, D. naturliche Ordnvng der plat. Schriften (Berlin, 
1856) ; H. Bonitz, Platonische Studien (3 ed., Berlin, 1886) ; 
Fr. Ueber weg, Untersuchungen fiber Fchtheit und Zeitfolgeplat. 
Sclir. (1861, Vienna) ; G. Teichmuller, P. plat. Frage (Gotha, 
1876); Ueber die Peihenfolge der plat. Pialoge (Leipzig, 1879) ; 
Litterar. Fehden im vierten Jahrh. vor Chr. Geb. (Breslau, 
1881 f.) ; A. Krohn, Pie plat. Frage (Halle, 1878) ; W. Ditten- 
berger (in Hermes, 1881) ; H. Siebeck, in PaJirbuch f Mas. 
Philologie (1885) ; M. Schanz (Hermes, 1886) ; Th. Gomperz, 
Zur Zeitfolge plat. Schriften (Wien, 1887) ; E. Pfleiderer, 
Zur Losung der plat. Frage (Freiburg, 1888) ; Jackson, 
Plato's Later Theory of Ideas (Jour, of Philol, 1881-86); 
F. Diimmler, Akademika (Giessen, 1889) ; K. Schaarschmidt, 
D. Samm. der plat. Schr. (Bonn, 1866). 

With reference to all the different factors, the Pla- 
tonic writings group themselves somewhat as follows : * 

1 To which there have been added lately, but with little success, some 
philological statistics. 



MATERIALISM AND IDEALISM 183 

(1) The Works of Plato'' s Youth. These were written 
under the overpowering influence of Socrates ; in part dur- 
ing Socrates' life, in part in Megara immediately after his 
death. To this group belong Lysis and Laches, and, if they 
be genuiue, Charmides, Hippias Minor, and Alcibiades I. ; 
so, also, the Apology and both the apologetic dialogues, 
Crito and Euthyphro. 

Lysis (concerning friendship) and Laches (concerning cour- 
age) have purely Socratic content. Hippias Minor is also 
Socratic, and for its genuineness we have Aristotle's authority in 
Metaphysics, IV. 29, 1025 a. This treats the parallel between 
Achilles and Odysseus from the point of self-conscious virtue. 
Charmides (concerning prudence) and the rather unskilful and 
incoherent Alcibiades I. are doubtful. The Apology and Crito 
(concerning Socrates' fidelit3 T to law) are usually placed after the 
death of Socrates. Included in this class is Euthyphro (con- 
cerning piety), which also has entirely the character of an 
apology. Euthyphro criticises the charges of impiety made 
against Socrates by proving that true piet} T is the Socratic virtue. 
It is not impossible that the latter three were written about 395, 
during Plato's residence at Athens, and were an answer to the 
renewed attacks upon the memory of Socrates. 1 

(2) The Disputations concerning Sophistical Theories. 
In these appear now, besides his criticisms of the Sophists, 
indications of his own philosophy. These works are sup- 
posed to have been written or begun in Athens in the time 
between the Egyptian and Sicilian journeys. They are the 
Protagoras, G-orgias, Euthydemus, Cratylus, Meno, and 
Theoztetus. Presumably there belong to this period the first 
book of the Republic and the dialogue concerning justice. 

These dialogues, with the exception of the Meno, are entirely 
polemic and without positive result. They form a solid phalanx 
against Sophism, and show the falsity and insufficiency of its 
doctrines one after another : the Protagoras, by the investiga- 
tion concerning the teachableness of virtue, which Plato shows 

i Compare above. Further evidence of this is the manner in which sev- 
eral dialogues (Gorgias, Meno, and Theaitetus), which for other reasons 
are known to belong to that time, contain allusions to the trial of Socrates. 



184 HISTOKY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

to be presupposed by the Sophists, but incompatible with their 
fundamental principles ; the Gorgias, through a criticism of the 
Sophistic rhetoric, in contrast with which genuine scientific cul- 
ture is celebrated as the onty foundation for true statecraft ; 
the Euthydemus through the persiflage of eristic ; the Cratylus 
hy a criticism of the philologic attempts of the sophistic 
contemporaries ; the Thewtetus, finally, in a criticism of the 
epistemology of the different schools of Sophists. 

Protagoras, dramatically the most animated of Plato's dia- 
logues, heads this series as a masterpiece of fine irony. It is 
doubtful whether Gorgias followed it immediately, for there is a 
great difference in the fundamental tone of the two. Yet it is 
entirely natural that the artist, Plato, in the second dialogue, in 
which he takes a much more positive position, should adopt a 
more serious tone, and should give a more intensely spiritual 
expression to his political ideal of life. The Euthydemus and 
Cratylus, which perhaps, therefore, are to be placed before the 
Gorgias, follow the Protagoras, the irony mounting to the most 
insolent caricature. 

If Hippias Major is taken as genuine, it belongs in this class, 
for it contains Plato's criticism of the sophistic art of Hippias. 
Yet it is probable, rather, that the Hippias Major was the pro- 
duction of a member of the Academy who was fully familiar 
with the Platonic teachings. 

The dialogue concerning justice is a polemic against the Soph- 
ists, and, indeed, against their naturalistic theory of the state. 
This dialogue forms at present the first book of the Republic, and 
was possibly its first edition (Gellius, Noet. Att., XIV. 3, 3). It 
resembles throughout in tone the writings of this time, which fact 
does not obtain as to the chief parts of the Republic. Also the 
first half of the second book of the Republic (until 367 c) seems 
to be a copy of a Sophistic speech called Praise of Injustice. 

In the Meno the Platonic epistemology had its first positive 
expression, even if it is only an exposition developed by sugges- 
tions, and stated after the manner of the mathematician. The 
Pythagorean influences, which are also found in the Gorgias, do 
not oblige us to put the Meno in the time after the first Italian 
journey. It is remarkable that the Thewtetus, so soon after the 
youthful enthusiasm with which the Gorgias had proclaimed 
(174 f.) the vocation of the philosopher to be statesmanship, 
advocated 1 so pessimistically the retirement of the philosopher 

1 The opinion shared by Th. Begk (Fiinf Abh. z. Gesch. d. gr. PHI. 
u. Astron., Berlin, 1883), that this dialogue should be put as late as the 
fourth decade of the fourth century, cannot be reconciled with its content. 



MATERIALISM AND IDEALISM 185 

from public life. Yet the explanation of this ma}' be that Plato 
began the Thecetetus in Athens, and completed it after or upon 
his journey ; for the dialogue refers to a wound that Theaetetus 
received in an encounter during the Corinthian war. His clash 
with the tyrant and his wily and adroit flatterer (Aristippus?) 
is consistent with his experiences at this time. There is per- 
haps a connection between this and the change of form, which 
makes it necessary to place the dialogue at the end of this series. 

(3) The Works of the Most Fruitful Period of Plato's 
Activity. These are the Phcedrus, Symposium, and the chief 
part of the Republic. In the same period were probably 
written the Parmenides, Sophist, and Politicus, which cer- 
tainly came from the Platonic circle. 

The Phoedrus may be viewed as Plato's program delivered 
upon his entrance (386) into active teaching in the Academy. 
Philosophically it contains the fundamental thoughts of this 
period in mythical dress : the theory of the two worlds (§ 35) 
and the triple division of the soul (§ 36). In the contention 
between Lysias and Isocrates he takes the latter's part, but de- 
clares thereby (276) that he prefers the living conversation to the 
written word. If Plato concentrated from now on his powers in 
oral instruction, it is natural that he should appear not to have 
published any work in the two following decades. 

Not until immediately after the Phoedrus did he give the fullest 
expression to his entire teaching in the " love speeches " * of the 
Symposium (385 or 384). The most superb of all his artistic 

1 The exposition of these thoughts lies so essentially in the direct 
line of the Platonic philosophy that it does not seem necessary to 
seek their inspiration in the appearance of a work of Xenophon. Xeno- 
phon did not have the slightest occasion to treat the "love-speeches" 
by the side of the Memorabilia as a separate work, as he manifestly 
did treat them. It is rather probable that after Plato idealized the 
evening feast (for there is undoubtedly some historical ground for 
the description) in his own way, Xenophon felt compelled to give an ac- 
count of the facts. His additions were especially to the thoroughly prac- 
tical conception, which Socrates developed, as to the relations of the 
sexes. In addition to these practical reasons there are also verbal and 
historical grounds for placing Plato's account prior to that of Xeno- 
phon's rather than the opposite. Compare A. Hug (Pliilol., 1852), and 
Rettig (Xen.'s Gastmahl, Greek and German, Leipzig, 1881). 



186 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

products, it represents in every respect the acme of his intellect- 
ual power, hi the elegance of its rhetoric and in the character- 
ization of single individuals carried out to verbal detail, it is 
surpassed by no work. Upon the background of the cosmology, 
suggested in. the Phoeclrus and clearly developed here, it pictures 
the epws as the living bond of the Platonic society. 

The Menexenus has the same general tendencies as the Sym- 
posium and the Phoedrus, but it was probably written not by 
Plato, but by one of his pupils. It boasts somewhat proudly 
at the end that Aspasia has many more beautiful speeches like 
the given funeral-oration. 

During the time of literary silence that immediately followed, 
Plato appears to have been going on with his great life work, — 
that one, among all his works, which presents the most serious 
critical and historical difficulties. This is the Republic. As it 
lies before us, it is wanting in an intellectual and artistic unity in 
spite of its subtile, often all too intricate, references and cross- 
references. All attempts to establish such a unity fail. Follow- 
ing the fruitless dialogue concerning justice, which forms the 
first part of the work (first, according to the present divisions, 
which were indeed traditional early in antiquity), there comes, 
after the insertion of a species of sophistic discourse, the conver- 
sation with entirely new persons concerning the ideal state, and 
concerning the education necessary for constructing a state by 
which the ideal justice may be realized. Thus there appear two 
perfectly unlike parts welded together, but the second and greater 
(Books II.-X.) is by no means a decided advance in thought. 
In particular, the diatribe taken up again at the beginning of the 
tenth book against the poets, stands abruptly in the way between 
the proofs that the just man in the Platonic sense is the happiest 
man on earth (Book IX., 2d half, 588 f.) as well as after death 
(Book X., 2d half, 608 c.) It is particularly striking that 
whereas the teaching about the ideal state and the education 
peculiar to it restricts itself entirely to the limits set forth in 
the Phcedrus and Symposium, we find an intervening section 
(487-587) which not only expresses the teaching of Ideas as 
the highest content of this education in the sense stated in the 
Phcedo and developed in the Philebus, but also develops in a 
more extended way the different metaphysical teachings of the 
later period. These and other single references, which cannot 
be followed out in this place, show that there are three strata in 
the Republic : (1) the dialogue of earl}' origin concerning justice 
(Book I., possibly including appendix, 357-67) ; (2) the outline 
of an ideal state as the realization of justice, originating at the 
time of his teaching, that followed the Phcedrus and Symposium 



MATERIALISM AND IDEALISM 187 

(Books II.-V.), and the entire conclusion from Ch. XII. (Book 
IX.) ; (3) the theory, dating from the time of the Phmdo and 
Philebus, of the Idea of the Good, and the critique of the consti- 
tutions of the state (487-587). As Plato grew older, he sought 
to weld these three parts into one another. To accomplish 
this, he now and then worked over the earlier portions, but he 
did not succeed in bringing them into a perfect organic union. 
In accepting a successive genesis of the whole, the simplest ex- 
planation is given of the insertions, which appear still further 
within the different parts in polemic justification. These in- 
sertions are attempts to meet objections that had in the mean 
time been raised orally or in writing. 

In the course of the discussion of the theory of Ideas in the 
Academy, there appeared difficulties in the way of their devel- 
opment. The Parmenides and Sophist were written especially 
to express these objections and to discuss them. The Parme- 
nides with a dialectic which drew its formal and practical argu- 
ments from Eleaticism, tears the theory of Ideas to pieces 
without reaching a positive result. The contemptuous tone and 
the boyish immature role which is clearly given to the Socrates- 
Plato, stands in the way of regarding this as Plato's criticism of 
himself. Probably an older member of the Platonic circle, 
who was educated in Eleatic sophistry, is the author of this 
dialogue. The Parmenides does not give to Socrates, but to 
Parmenides, the deciding word, and it bears entirely the Eleatic 
character of sterile dialectic. 1 

The question about the genuineness of the Sophist and the 
Politicus is more difficult. That both have the same author 
can be inferred from their form. On the one hand, in both, as 
in Parmenides, not Socrates but a friend and guest, who is an 
Eleatic, leads the conversation ; on the other hand, there is the 
pedantic and somewhat absurd schematism, with which, by a 
continuously progressive dichotomy, the concept of the Sophist 
and statesman is attained. It is therefore impossible to ascribe 
one dialogue to Plato and the other not to him, as Suchow has 
attempted. The two stand or fall together. It might be pos- 
sible to divine an intended caricature of the philosopher in 
certain externals that are in other respects wholly un-Platonic, 
but the contents of both forbid this. The criticism of the theory 

1 If Philebus, 14 c, refers to Parmenides, the notable way in giving 
up the investigation of ev and noWd is rather a reason for regarding 
the Parmenides as a polemic that had been rejected. This is better 
than to let both these dialogues stand or fall together, as Ueberweg 
prefers (I. 151, 7th ed.). 



188 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

of Ideas which is contained in the Sophist (compare § 28) 
might be conceived, perhaps, as Platonic self-criticism, although 
weighty reasons are also against it. But the manner in which 
it solves the discovered difficulties is not Platonic. 1 So the 
Politicus contains man} 7 points of view which agree with Plato's 
political convictions. It is, however, not probable that the 
philosopher tried to treat the same problem in a book other 
than the Republic, especially since the Politicus sets up other 
teachings which differ on important points, Convincing reasons 
are therefore adduced for seeking the authorship of both in a 
member of the Academy with strong Eleatic sympathies. 2 It 
is singular enough that the divergence of both from the Platonic 
teaching lies exactly in the direction of the metaplrysics and 
politics of Aristotle, 3 who entered the Academy in 367. 

About this time the dialogue Io may have originated, which 
indeed makes use of Platonic thoughts in its distinction between 
poetry and philosophy, but cannot be safely attributed to the 
head of the school. 

(4) The Chief Works on Teleological Idealism. These 
were written in the time before and after the third Sicilian 
journey. They are the Phcedo, Philebus, the correspond- 
ing parts of the Republic (487 f.), and in connection with 
these the fragment of Oritias and the Timceus. 

The characteristic of this period is the introduction of Anaxa- 
gorean and Pj T thagorean elements into the theory of Ideas. 
The central concept is the Idea of the Good. The introduction 
of these elements finds its full perfection in the JPhcedo, which 
was written presumably shortly before the third Sicilian journey. 

1 In the passage of Phcedo (101 d), Plato explains the problem of 
the Sophist and also of Parmenides as relatively indifferent problems, 
compared to the importance of the establishment of the theory of 
ideas. 

2 Who perhaps was prevented by death or other cause from the 
third proposed dialogue ((f)i\6o-o<j)os) . That the trilogy seems to be 
connected as to its external framework (which is moreover very much 
wanting in fancy) with the conclusion of the Thecetetus, is not decisive 
for the Platonic authorship. 

3 The way in which he mentions both dialogues, I cannot recognize 
as proof of their genuineness, in spite of the conclusions of Zeller (II 4 . 
457 f.). 



MATERIALISM AND IDEALISM 189 

As if conscious of the dangers to be met, Plato gives to this dia- 
logue the tone of a last will and testament to the school. As a 
delightful counterpart to the Symposium, he pictures the dying 
Wise Man as a teacher of immortality. 

After this journey, the philosopher 1 reached the zenith of his 
metaphysics in his investigations concerning the Idea of the 
Good, which are embodied in the dialogue Philebus. All the 
thoughts 2 that are expressed there, are to be found again in 
the less abstract presentation in the middle part of the Republic, 2, 
which was designated above as its third stratum (487-587). 4 
Plato has then, as an afterthought, brought into external rela- 
tionship the incomplete sketches of his philosophy of history 
(Critias), and likewise his mythical theory of nature (Timceus) 
with the scenic setting of the Republic (supposably finished at 
this time). 

(5) The Laws. This is the work of his old age. 

This sketch of a second-best state originated at the time when 
Plato in his Ao'yot a-y pairroL entirely went through the theoty of 
Ideas with the Pythagorean theory of numbers in mind. The 
exposition passes over here into senile formality, although still 
worthy our admiration. The present form of the work pro- 
ceeded from Plato even in its details, although the manuscript 
was said to have been published first by Philip of Opus after the 
death of Plato. The same scholar had edited the epitome of 
the Laws, which under the title of Epinomis was received in 
the Platonic circle. 

35. The epistemological, metaphysical doctrine, known 
as the theory of Ideas, forms the central point in the 

1 The new course that Plato certainly takes, shows itself in 
the peculiar fact that in the Philebus expressions like epms and 
dvApvrja-is have lost the specific sense which the earlier dialogues have 
given them. 

2 Among others, the treatment also of the concept of pleasure which 
might be claimed to belong to Democritus. (See above.) 

8 Tn this part a number of pedagogical and political discussions 
appear to have been sprinkled, which already could have belonged to 
the earlier sketch of the ideal state and supposably did belong to it. 
The details cannot be given here. 

4 This interpolated piece begins with a discussion. In this discus- 
sion the experiences, which the philosopher underwent with the young 
tyrant at Syracuse, are made use of detail by detail. 



190 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

Platonic philosophy. The root of this inspired conception 
lies in Plato's attempt to transcend the Protagorean doc- 
trine of relativity, whose validity for the world of sense and 
perception he recognized. By the help of the study of 
concepts after the Soeratic method he tried to attain a safe 
and a universally valid science of the true essence of 
things. The final motive of this theory was, however, the 
ethical need of winning true virtue by true knowledge. 
The subjective point of departure 1 was, for Plato as for 
Socrates, the conviction of the inefficiency of customary 
virtue. The virtue of custom, resting upon convention and 
prudential considerations, is unconscious of its fundamen- 
tal principle, and is exposed to the insecurity of change and 
opinions. Plato showed to Sophistry 2 that it with its 
pleasure theory took the popular point of view for its own, 
and he found the reason for this in the fact that Sophis- 
try renounced all real knowledge, and therefore could find 
no fundamental basis for virtue. In this sense Plato 3 
purposely agreed with the Protagorean theory about the 
value of sense perception and of opinions based on it. 
He was vigorous in asserting the relativity of such knowl- 
edge, and its inability to give us the true essence of things. 
But precisely for that reason the ethical need drove Plato 
beyond Sophistry, and led him to fight Protagoras the more 
energetically with Protagoras' own relativism. If there be 
virtue of any sort, it must rest on other than relative 
knowledge, which alone the Sophists considered. 

But Socrates had, to the mind of Plato, shown us the 
way through conceptual science to this other knowledge 
which is independent of all accident of perception and 

1 Especially Meno, 96 f. Compare Phcedo, 82 a, and the Republic in 
different places. 

2 Chiefly in the Gorgias. 

3 All the points of view of the Sophistic epistemology are discussed 
thoroughly in the Thecetetus. 



MATERIALISM AND IDEALISM 191 

opinion. The methodical development of this postulate was 
called by Plato the Dialectic. 1 Its object is on the one 
hand to find individual concepts (awaycoyr)), and then to 
establish the mutual relations of these concepts by division 
(Sica'pecrcs, rejjbvetv). Plato used the Socratic induction in 
the main in finding the concepts, and supplemented this by 
hypothetical discussions in testing and verifying the con- 
cepts. These hypothetical discussions draw out all the 
consequences from the constructed concept, and thus bring 
it to the touchstone 2 of fact. The dividing of these class 
concepts is the method which was introduced anew 3 by 
Plato with the intention of exposing the logical relations 
between concepts ; and therefore connected with this pro- 
cess of dividing there are investigations concerning the 
compatibility and incompatibility of concepts, i. e., concern- 
ing the principle of disjunction. 4 As the last goal of 
dialectic, there appeared withal a logical system of con- 
cepts, 5 arranged according to their relations of co-ordina- 
tion and subordination. 

Herbart, De Plat, systematic fundamento, Vol. XII. 61 f. ; 
S. Ribbing, Genetische Darstellung von Platons Ideenlehre 
(Leipzig, 1863-64) ; H. Cohen, Die plat. Ideenlehre (Zeitschr. 
f. Volkerpsych. u. SpracJuoissench. 1866) ; H. v. Stein, Sieben 
Bucher zur Geschichte des Plat. (Gott, 1862-75, 3 vols.) ; 
A. Peipers, Untersuehungen uber das System Plat., Vol. I. 
(The epistemology of Plato, examined with especial reference 

i Phcedr., 265 f. ; Rep., 511 f ; ibid., 533. ; Phileb., 16. 

2 Meno, 86; Phced., 101; Rep., 534. The Parmenides similarly 
(135 £.) ; hut applies the Platonic principle in the spirit of the fruitless 
antinomy of the Eleatic Sophists. 

3 Phileb., 16. 

4 Particularly Phced., 102 f. 

5 In their method, the Parmenides, Sophist, and Politicus stand 
entirely on Platonic ground by their happy and logically sharp turns. 
The application, however, that they make of the method seems a juve- 
nile attempt at independent development rather than an ironical auto- 
caricature by Plato. 



192 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

to the Thecetetus) (Leipzig, 1874) ; Onotologia platonica 
(Leipzig, 1883). 

The Protagorean doctrine of relativity is for Plato not only an 
object of polemic, but, as in the case of Democritus, is an inte- 
gral part of his system. This will become more evident as we 
proceed. Skepticism of the senses is the mighty corner-stone 
of both these sj^stems of rationalism. On the other hand, the 
ethical point of view of Plato carried with it the attitude — and 
herein that of Democritus was also one with it — that it could 
not ascribe to the Sophistic doctrine of pleasure even the worth 
of a relatively valid moment. This was at least the doctrine in 
the first draft of the theory of the Ideas, although later, especially 
in the jPhilebus, Plato's conception was in this somewhat changed 
(§ 36). 

Direct, logical, or methodological investigations were not yet 
made by Plato, at least not in his writings. On the contrary, 
one finds numerous isolated statements scattered through his 
dialogues. In practical treatment the synagogic method out- 
weighs by far the dieretic. Only the Sophist and Politicus 
give examples of the dieretic method, and these are indeed very 
unfortunate examples. Hypothetical discussions of concepts, 
however, grew to a fruitful principle in the scientific theories of 
the Older Academy (§ 37). 

These concepts include a kind of knowledge that is very 
different in origin and content from that founded on per- 
ception. In perception there comes into consciousness the 
world of change and appearance. Conception gives us the 
permanent Essence of things (ovala). The objective con- 
tent of conceptual knowledge is the Idea. If true knowl- 
edge — thus Plato followed the Socratic ideal — is supposed 
to be given in the concepts, then this must be a knowledge 
of what really is. 1 As, therefore, the relative truth of 
sense perception consists in its translating the changing 
relations that spring up in the process of Becoming, so 
the absolute truth of conceptual knowledge (that of Dia- 
lectic) consists in the fact that it conceives in the Ideas 
the true Being, independent of every change. So two dif- 
ferent worlds correspond to the two ways of knowing : a 

1 TkeceL, 188; Rep., 476 f. 



MATERIALISM AND IDEALISM 193 

world of true reality, the Ideas, the object of conceptual 
knowledge ; and a world of relative actuality, the things 
that come and go, the objects of sense perception. 1 The 
predicates of the Eleatic Being belong therefore to the 
Idea as the object of true knowledge, avrb tcad 1 avrb fieO' 
avrov /jiovoeiSes del ov ; 2 it is unchangeable, ovSe ttot ovSapaj 
ovBcl/jlcos dWoLcoacv ovhefiiav eVSe%eTcu. 3 The perceivable 
individual things, on the contrary, constitute the Heracleitan 
flux of continuous origination, change, and destruction. 
The fundamental principle of the metaphysical epistemol- 
ogy of Plato is this : two worlds must be distinguished, 4 
one of which is and never becomes, the other of which be- 
comes and never is ; one is the object of the reason (vorjo-ts), 
the other is the object of sense (auo-^crt?). Since, now, 
the objects are as completely separated (%a>pt?) as the 
methods of knowing are distinct, the Ideas stand as incor- 
poreal forms (^da-co^ara ecSr]) in contrast to material things, 
which are perceived by the senses. The Ideas, which are 
never to be found 5 in space or in matter, which indeed exist 
purely for themselves (elXc/cpives'), which are to be grasped 6 
not by the senses but only by thought, form an intel- 
ligible world in themselves (tottos votjtos). A rational 
theory of knowledge requires an immaterialistic meta- 
physics. 

This immaterialism was the peculiarly original creation of 
Plato. Where in the earlier systems, not excluding that of 
Anaxagoras, the discussion turned upon the spiritual as the 
distinctive principle, nevertheless the principle always appeared 
as a peculiar kind of corporeal actualit}^. Plato, on the other 
hand, first discovered a purely spiritual world. 

The theory of Ideas is, therefore, an entirely new mediation 
of the Eleatic and the Heracleitan metaphysic, employing the 

1 This view is stated most clearly in Timceus, 27 f., 57 f. Compare 

Rep., 509 £., 533. 2 Symp., 211. 

3 Phcedo, 78. 4 Tim., 27 d. 

6 Symp., 211. 6 Rep., 507; Tim., 28. 

13 



194 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

opposition between the Protagorean and Socratic theories of 
knowledge. Precisely for this reason, in the Thecetetus, Plato 
brought the Sophistic theory of perception into closer relation- 
ship to the -rravTa pel than the Sophist himself had brought it. 
On the other hand, the close relationship of the Socratic episte- 
mology to the Eleatic doctrine of Being had already been recog- 
nized by the Megarians (§ 28). The positive rnetaphysic of 
Plato may be characterized, therefore, as immaterialistic Eleati- 
cism. 1 Therein consists its ontological character (Deuschle). 
It cognizes Being in Ideas, and relegates Becoming to a lower 
form of knowing. 

The neo-Pythagorean-neo-Platonic conception was an en- 
tire misunderstanding of Plato. According to this concep- 
tion, Ideas possess no independent actuality, but are only 
thought- forms supposed to exist in the divine mind. Through 
the neo-Platonism of the Renaissance, and even down to the 
beginning of this century, this interpretation of Plato obtained. 
Herbart was of great service in his opposition to it (Einleit. 
in d. Philos., § 144 f. ; Vol. I. 240 f.). 

Consistent with the theory of two worlds, as the central 
point in Platonism, is the manner in which Plato repre- 
sented our cognition of Ideas in particular. 

The primary function of the Ideas is to set forth the 
logical character of the class concepts, to reveal the com- 
mon qualities (to kolvov) of the particulars which the 
class concepts comprehend. They are, in the Aristotelian 
phraseology, the ev iirl iroWoiv? But Plato regarded the 
process of thought, not as analysis, nor as an abstraction by 
comparison, but as rather a synoptic intuition 3 of reality 
presented in single examples. The Idea cannot be con- 
tained in its perceived phenomenon. It is of another sort, 
and cannot be found in appearance. In other words, ma- 
terial things do not include the Idea, but are only the 

1 The relative pluralistic character of the theory of Ideas is in con- 
trast to original Eleaticism. It did not, as in the earlier attempts at 
mediation, arise from the need of an explanation of Becoming, but from 
the circumstance that conceptual knowledge can and must refer to a 
manifold of independent content-determinations. 

2 Met., I. 9, 990 b, 6. 3 Phcedr., 265 ; Rep., 537. 



MATERIALISM AND IDEALISM 195 

copies or shadows 1 of it. Therefore the perceptions can- 
not include the Ideas as separable integral parts, but are, 
on the contrary, only the occasions for the apprehension of 
that Idea that is similar to the perceptions but not identi- 
cal with them. Since the Idea cannot be created by re- 
flection, it must be regarded as an original possession of 
the soul which the soul remembers when it sees its copy in 
the sense world. The recognition of the ideas is dvd- 

[ivr)GL<z. 2 

In the mythical representation in the Phcedrus, Plato 
presupposes that the human soul has gazed upon the Idea 
with its supersensible faculties, — those related to the 
world of Ideas, —before its entrance into earthly life, but 
it remembers them only upon the perception of correspond- 
ing phenomena. Thereby out of the painful feeling of 
astonishment at the contrast between the Idea and its 
phenomenon is created the philosophic impulse, the long- 
ing love for the supersensible Idea. This love is the epcos, 3 
which conducts it back from the transitoriness of sense to 
the immortality of the ideal world. 4 

There is an interesting parallel between the intuitive character, 
which the recognition of Ideas in Plato possesses, and the 
yvojp; yvrjo-LT] of Democritus. In Plato also analogies to optical 
impressions predominate. Both Democritus and Plato have in 
mind immediate knowledge of the pure forms (ISiat), the abso- 
lutely actual 5 which is attained wholly apart from sense percep- 

i Rep., 514 f. ; Phcedo, 73. 

2 Meno, 80 f. ; PTicedr., 249 f. ; Phcedo, 72 f. 

3 PhcBdr.y 250 f., and especially Symp., 200 f. 

4 The theory of the epws takes on thereby in the Symposium a more uni- 
versal aspect of beholding the living principle of all Becoming (ykvea-ts) 
in the desire for the Idea (ovaia), and so prepares the way for the teleo- 
logical interpretation of Ideas. 

5 One has the same right to speak of " sensualism " in Plato as in 
Democritus. Both explain true knowledge of the ovtcos ov as the recep- 
tion of the Ibeai by the soul, not as an act of sense perception, although 
as illustrated by the analogy to optical perception. 



196 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

tion. The exposition of this teaching appears in Plato (Phcedrus 
and Symposium) in mythical form. For since it is a question of 
the time-process of the knowledge of the eternal, of the genesis 
of the intuition of the Absolute, a dialectic presentation is not 
possible. 

Since the Ideas are hypostasized class-concepts, in their 
first draft there are for Plato as many Ideas as there are 
class concepts or general names for different perceptual 
things. There are, therefore, Ideas of all that is in any 
wise thinkable, 1 — Ideas of things, qualities and relations, 
of products of art and nature, of the good and of the bad, 
of the high and of the low. 2 The later dialogues (^Sympo- 
sium, Phcedo, Timceus) speak only of such Ideas as have 
an inherent value, such as the good and the beautiful ; of 
such as correspond to nature products, like fire, snow, etc. ; 
and, finally, of mathematical relations, like great and small, 
unity and duality. Aristotle reports that Plato in later 
time did no longer recognize Ideas of artifacts, negations, 
and relations, and that he held, in place of these, essentially 
nature class-concepts. 3 An exacter determination of the 
circle within which the philosopher, especially in different 
periods of his development, extended or wished to extend 
his theory of Ideas, cannot be made. 

In general the chronological order of the dialogues indicates 
that Plato originally constructed a world of Ideas according to 
his logical and epistemological view of class concepts. In the 
course of time, however, he came more and more to seek in this 
supersensible world the highest values and the fundamental onto- 
logical forms, according to which the sense world of Becoming 
is modelled. From the world of Ideas there thus arose an 

1 Rep., 596. 

2 For particular proofs, consult Zeller, II s . 585 f. The dialogue 
Parmenides proves with fine irony to the " young Socrates " that he 
must accept also the Ideas of hair, mud, etc. (130 f.). In as late a 
writing as the middle part of the Republic, Plato used the Ideas of bed, 
etc., to illustrate his theory. 

3 Met., XI. 3, 1070 a, 18. 



MATERIALISM AND IDEALISM 197 

ideal world. The norms of value thus took the place of class 
concepts. The ethical motive became more and more influen- 
tial in his philosophy, as appears also in what follows. 

The more thoroughly the theory of Ideas in their first 
draft distinguished the two worlds from each other, the 
more difficult it became to determine the relation of the 
things of sense to their respective Ideas. The characteristic 
of this relation most frequently given in the dialogues Meno, 
Thecetetus, Phcedrus, and Symposium, and likewise in the 
Phcedo, is similarity. This is consistent with the thought 
which the philosopher developed in those same dialogues 
concerning the origin of concepts ; for similarity forms the 
psychological ground through which, 1 stimulated by percep- 
tion, the recollection of the Idea is said to come. Similar- 
ity, 2 however, is not equivalence. The Idea never appears 
fully in the things, 3 and accordingly Plato designated the 
relationship of the two as fjulfirja-is*. The Idea is thus 
regarded 5 as the original ( Urbild) ^TrapaSety fia) , the sensed 
object as the copy (Abbild) (ecSwXov'). Exactly herein 
consists the small amount of reality which the corporeal 

1 Now one would say: according to the law of the association of 
ideas, which moreover Plato enunciated expressly in this respect in the 
Plicedo, 73 f. 

2 In view of the same the Parmenides raises the dialectic plea 
(131 f.), that it presupposes a tertium comparationis for the Idea and the 
phamomenon and forms an infinite regress. It is the objection of the 
rplros avOpcoiros- Compare Aristotle, Met., VI. 113, 1039 a, 2. 

3 Plato was probably prompted to emphasize this by the incongruity 
of actual life with the ethical norm ; primarily, however, from the theo- 
retical point of view by the fact that the mathematical concepts are 
factors in the consideration, and that these are never the result of per- 
ception. See Phcedo, 73 a ; Meno, 85 e. The hypothetical discussion of 
concepts stands furthermore in most exact connection with this. 

4 Whether he thus early adopted this expression from the Pythago- 
rean number theory need not be discussed. 

5 See the freely accommodative and relatively early presentation in 
the Republic, 595 f. 



198 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

world possesses in contrast to the ovtcds 6V. On the other 
hand, viewed from its logical side, the Idea is the unitary, 
the permanent, 1 in which the things of sense in their origi- 
nation, change, and destruction have only temporary and 
occasional part (/uere^etz/). 2 This relationship is, again, on- 
tologically so viewed that the change of qualities of sensi- 
ble things is reduced ultimately to a coming and going of 
Ideas. On account of this change the Idea at one time 
participates in the particular thing Qirapovaia)? and at 
another leaves it. 4 

The later phase (Phcedo') of the theory of Ideas has a 
thought that seems to have been absent from the original 
statement, viz., that in the Ideas the causes may be some- 
how found for the things of sense appearing as they do 
appear. The purpose of Plato was originally only to recog- 
nize permanent true Being. The theory of Ideas in the 
Meno, Thecetetus, Phoedrus, and Symposium does not attempt 
to be an explanation of the world of phenomena. The sig- 
nificance of the Sophist is that it proposes this problem. 
Confronting the theory of Ideas with other metaphysical 
theories, the Sophist asks how this lower world of sense- 
appearance and its Becoming can be conceived as deduced 
from supersensible forms which are removed from all motion 

i The Parmenides (130 f.) makes also at this point some dialectic 
objections of the Eleatic sort. Plato (Philebus, 14 f.) very curtly deals 
with these. 

2 Symp., 211 b. 3 Phwd., 100 d. 

4 The way in which the Phcedo develops this (102 f.) shows a re- 
markable analogy to the teaching of Anaxagoras, which teaching is also 
significant in other respects in this dialogue (see below.) As in Anax- 
agoras, the individuals are said to owe the change of their qualities -to 
the entrance or exit of the qualitatively unchangeable xpW aTa (§ 22), 
so here the Idea is added as giving a quality and as augmenting the thing 
(iTpoaylyveaSai). Or it disappears again when, of mutually exclusive 
Ideas, the one already inherent in the thing shuts out the other. This 
explanation is essentially that of the Herbartian conception of Ideas as 
absolute Qualitaten. 



MATERIALISM AND IDEALISM 199 

and change. It shows that immaterial Eleaticism is as un- 
able as early Eleaticism to explain this problem. For in 
order to explain the motion of the sense- world, Ideas must 
themselves be endowed with motion, life, soul, and reason. 
But the elScov (f>l\oi deny 1 to the Ideas all these qualities, 
especially the most important quality of motion. 

The Platonic philosophy reaches its zenith in the solution 
of this problem. The Phcedo declares that in the Ideas 
alone is the cause (atria) of the phenomenal world to be 
found, and however this relationship is to be conceived, the 
sense object is indebted to the Idea alone for its qualities. 2 
This is the strongest of Plato's convictions, and to prove 
it is the greatest problem of the dialectic. There are in- 
troduced in the same dialogue, however, the two elements, 
Anaxagoreanism and Pythagoreanism, 3 through which this 
new phase of the theory of Ideas took shape in his mind. 

i Soph., 248 f. The author of the Sophist founds this criticism 
(247 d) upon the definition that the ovtcos ov must be thought as Swapis, 
and whatever possesses Being must be thought as power in order to 
explain Becoming (das Geschehen). Although this expression is not 
to be explained in the spirit of the Aristotelian terminology (Zeller, II 3 . 
575, 3), still this view lies nowise in the direction in which Plato later 
solved the problem, dvvafits is active power (see Republic, 477, where 
dvvcifiis is used in the sense of a faculty of the soul). Ideas are, how- 
ever, final causes, and not such " faculties " as are definable only 
through their effects (Rep., he. cit.). 

2 Phcedo, 100 d, where reference seems to be made to the dialogue 
Sophist. 

3 About the time of this change Aristotle entered the Academy; 
hence his exposition of the genesis of the theory of Ideas (Met., I. 6). 
The great significance which is ascribed in the Metaphysics to the Pythago- 
rean theory in its bearing on Plato is not consistent with the content 
of any of the foundation dialogues, Thecetetus, Phcedrus, and Sympo- 
sium. Practically it begins first with the Philebus. But even the 
Phcedo shows, in its choice of persons and also in its discussion of the 
problems, that account is taken of the Pythagorean philosophy. Never- 
theless (Met., XII. 4, 1078 b, 9) Aristotle himself elsewhere remarks 



200 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

If the Ideas cannot themselves move and suffer change, 
they can be the causes of phenomena only in the sense that 
they are the purposes which are realized in phenomena. 
The only conception which therefore, from the point of 
view of the theory of Ideas, appears to be possible as an 
explanation of phenomena, is the teleological. 1 

The true relation between the Idea (oiWa) and the 
phenomenon (yeveat^ is that of purpose. Plato found in 
the z/o0?-theory of Anaxagoras an attempt to make this 
point of view valid. But while he subjected the insufficient 
development of this theory to a sharp criticism, 2 he main- 
tained in addition that the establishment as well as the 
development of a teleological view of the world is possible 
only to a theory of Ideas. 3 

The same theory is further developed in the Philebus 
and in the corresponding part of the Republic. If the 
Sophist* from a formal and logical point of view called 
attention to the fact that a similar fcowcovla, a relationship 
of co-ordination and subordination, exists between Ideas as 
well as between phenomena and Ideas, so the Republic** 
and the Philebus 6 emphasized also the systematic unity of 
the ovcria, and found it in the Idea of the Good, as including 
all other Ideas within itself. Thus the pyramid of con- 
cepts reached its apex, not by means of a formally logical 
process of abstraction, but, as it happens in the entire Pla- 
tonic dialectic, by means of an ontological intuition, express- 
ing here its final and highest viroOea^.' 1 For since all 

that the original conception of the theory of Ideas was independent 
of the number theory. 

1 Phileb., 54 c. : ^vfiiraaav yeuecriv ova-las eveica yiyveaOai £vfnrdo~r]s. 

2 Phcedo, 97 f. 

3 Ibid., 99 f. He called this the devrepos 7r\ovs of philosophy, and 
the development of philosophy as a theoretical explanation of phenom- 
ena he sketched in 95 c, if. 

4 Soph., 251 f. 6 Rep., 511 b. 

e Phileb., 16 f. i Phcedo, 101 b; Rep., loc. cit. 



MATERIALISM AND IDEALISM 201 

that is, is for some good, the Idea of the Good or of the 
absolute purpose is that to which all other Ideas are subor- 
dinated, this subordination being teleological rather than 
logical. The Idea of the Good stands, therefore, even above 
Being and Knowing, which are the two highest disjunctives. 1 
It is the sun 2 in the realm of Ideas from which everything 
else gets its value as well as its actuality. It is the 
World Reason. To it belong the name of vovs and that of 
Godhead. 

This immaterialistic perfecting of the Anaxagorean thought is 
set by Plato in the Philebus (28 f.) and stands opposed to the 
system of irrational necessity of Democritns. In this connection, 
as a matter of fact, the vovs and the Godhead and the Idea of the 
Good, so far as it included all the others under it, were identified 
with the total world of Ideas (atria ; compare Zeller, II 3 . 577 ff., 
593 f.). Neither is there here any suggestion of a personal divine 
spirit. Compare G. F. Rettig, Atria im Philebus (Bern. 1866) ; 
K. Stumpf, Verhaltnis des plat. Oottes zur Idee des Guten 
(Halle, 1869). 

The teleological cosmology of Plato consisted in his 
regarding Being or the world of Ideas as both purpose 
and cause 3 of phenomena or the world of matter, and 
besides these teleological causes he recognized no other 
causes in the strict meaning of the term. Likewise in the 
particular relations of phenomena those things which pre- 
sent themselves to sense perception as acting and having 
effect are valid for him only as secondary 4 causes (^waina). 
The true cause is purpose. 

However, the Idea never realizes itself fully in corporeal 

i Rep., 508 f. 2 Ibid. ; compare 517 b. 

8 In Philebus, 26 e, the search for the fourth principle is opened with 
the expressed explanation that fj rov ttoiovvtos (fivais (the essence of 
activity) may be distinguished only in name from the cause (atria). If 
this alria in the purpose is found in the Idea of the Good, then is the 
concept of the teleological cause attained. 

4 Phmdo, 99 b, where the cause is distinguished from the ov avev ro 
alnov ovk av nor etrj atnov. 



202 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

things. This thought was peculiar to the first draft of the 
theory of Ideas, and it got new support and significance 
in Plato's tendency toward Pythagoreanism which set 
the perfect and imperfect worlds in opposition to each 
other. The more, however, the world of Ideas became the 
ideal world, the perfect Being or the kingdom of Worth, 
the less could it be viewed as the cause of imperfection in 
the world of sense. The world of imperfection could rather 
only be sought in the thing that has no Being. For the 
sense world as eternally " becoming" has part not only 
in that which has Being (the Ideas), but also in that 
which has no Being (/^) 6v)} Empty space 2 was re- 
garded as having no Being by Plato as by the Eleatics. 
Plato moreover regarded empty space, like the Pythago- 
reans, as in itself formless and unfashioned, and precisely 
for that reason as pure 3 negation (o-reprjac^') of Being. 
But the formless is capable of all possible forms, and retains 
them by virtue of mathematical determinations. In this 
sense the Philebus 4 makes the Pythagorean fundamental 
opposition a part of his teleological metaphysic, in that 
he defined as the two first principles of the world of experi- 
ence the aireipov (endless formless space) and the irepas 
(the mathematical limitation and formation of that space). 
Out of the union of the two the world of the individual 
things of sense appears, and the fourth and highest prin- 
ciple forms the basis of this " mixing." This principle is 
the alrta, the Idea of the Good, or the cosmic reason, the 
vovs. 

1 Rep., 477 a. 

a That the fif) ov which is designated in the Philebus as the cmeipov 
and in the Timceus (§ 37) as degafxevr), eKfxayelov, etc., is space, Zeller 
has proved (III 3 . 605 f. ; see also H. Siebeck, Untersuclmngen, 49 f.). 
On this account the word " matter " has been avoided, lest it imply its 
unavoidable subordinate meaning, " unformed stuff." "Unformed stuff," 
the vkrj of Aristotle, had not yet had its meaning determined by Plato. 

3 Compare Arist. Phys., I. 9, 192 a, 6. 4 Phileb., 23 f. 



MATERIALISM AND IDEALISM 203 

Mathematics, whose importance for the dialectic has been 
emphasized above, had an ontological importance also in Plato's 
system. Mathematical forms are the link by means of which 
the Idea shapes space Ideologically into the sense world. 1 Here 
for the first time is explained the position which the philosopher 
assigns this science in connection with his epistemology. Mathe- 
matics is a knowledge not of the phenomenal world but of the 
permanent world. For that reason in the earlier dialogues it 
seems to have been used only for dialectic 2 purposes. Its objects, 
however, especially geometrical objects, have still something of 
sense in them, which distinguishes them from the Ideas in the 
later evaluation of the Ideas. Therefore mathematics belongs, 
according to the schema of the Republic (509 f., 523 f.) not to 
the 86£a (the knowledge of yeVecm), but to v6t]o-l<s (the knowledge 
of ovaia) . Within ovata it is to be distinguished as Stdvota from 
the peculiar hrumqiir], the knowledge of the Idea of the Good. 
Mathematics appears, then, in the education of the ideal state as 
the highest preparation for philosophy, but only as preparation. 

Concerning Plato as a mathematician, his introduction of 
definitions and the analytic method, see Cantor, Geschichte der 
Mathematik, I. 183 f. 

In his latter days Plato borrowed from the Pythagorean 
number theory the principle by which he hoped for a 
systematic presentation and articulation of the world of 
Ideas. Logical investigations 3 toward this end were given 
up as soon as from the teleological principle the Idea of 
the Good had been placed at the head. The Pythagorean 
method of developing concepts according to the number series 
commended itself to him. In adopting this method, Plato 

1 A good parallel exists also here between Plato and Democritus, 
although in the latter's theory in the place of the teleological curia of 
the Philebus stood the avayKq ( 17 tov akoyov ko,\ eUr} dvpafii? Kai to. 
ottt] erv^ev, Phileb., 28 d), and although the <kvov and the a-yi\[iara 
(the I8eai of Plato) produce the sense world. In view of this, one 
can see in the exposition in the Philebus, 23-26, a reference to Demo- 
critus, whose teaching this dialogue appears to have used in other 
places (§ 33). 

2 The Me.no shows how we can know Ideas by geometrical examples 
(Pythagorean doctrine) . 

3 Sophist, especially 254 f. 



204 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

also symbolized single Ideas by ideal numbers. The ele- 
ments of the Ideas are the aireipov and the irepas in analogy 
to the principles laid down for the sense world in the Phile- 
bus. The aireipov has here the significance of " intelligible 
space." 1 Out of the ev which he identified 2 with the Idea 
of the Good, he derived all other Ideas, as a graded series 
of conditioning and conditioned (irporepov kcu varepov). 

Traces of this senile attempt are to be found in the PMlebus 
and the Laws. In other respects we are instructed only by 
Aristotle concerning these aypanra Soy/xara : Met., I. 6, XII. 
4 f. ; compare A. Trendelenburg, Plat, de ideis et numeris doc- 
trina ex Arist. illustrata (Leipzig, 1826), and Zeller, II 3 . 567 f. 

36. Measured by its first motive, Plato's theory of Ideas 
is an outspoken ethical metaphysic. Consequently Ethics 
was the philosophical science which he chiefly and most 
fruitfully built upon. Among the Ideas that the dialectic 
undertook to develop, social norms had a prominent place. 
The immaterialism of the double-world theory necessarily 
involved an ascetic morality that was very uncharacteristic 
of Greek thought. The Thecetetus? for example, sets up 
an ideal of retirement from the world for the philosopher 
who, since earthly life is full of evil, finds refuge as quickly 
as possible in the divine presence. The Phcedo 4 further 
develops this negative ethics in all its details. It pictures 
the whole life of the philosopher as already a dying, a puri- 
fication of the soul from the dross of sense existence. The 
soul in the body is, as it were, in prison, and it can free 
itself only by knowledge and virtue. 

This view, which is particularly like that of the Pythag- 
oreans among the ancient moral theories, took in the 
metaphysical theory of Ideas a special form, by virtue 
of which the psychological basis was created also for 

1 Compare H. Siebeck, Untersuclmngen, 97 f. 

2 Aristox. Elem. harm., II. 30. 

3 172, 176 f. 4 64 f. 



MATERIALISM AND IDEALISM 205 

the positive ethics of Plato. In the theory of the two 
worlds the soul must take a peculiar intermediary position, 
— a theory that could be developed not without difficulties 
and contradictions. On account of its ideal character the 
soul must be capable of conceiving the Ideas, and on this 
account must be related to them. 1 The soul belongs to the 
supersensible world, and should have all the qualities of 
that world, — non-origination, indestructibility, unity, and 
changelessness. But since it is the carrier of the Idea of 
life, 2 and as cause of motion is itself eternally movable, it 
is not identical to the Ideas, but very similar to them. 3 
Therefore for Plato it had pre-existence and lasted beyond 
the earthly body. Yet in that changeless timelessness of 
Being which belongs to the Ideas it has likewise only a 
share, since it also belongs to ryeveats but it is not identi- 
cal with the Ideas. On the other hand, the Socratic prin- 
ciple required that the soul's goodness and badness must 
not be attributed to external fate, but to the soul itself. 4 
Since its essence, related as it is to the world of Ideas, 
cannot be answerable for a bad decision, its higher nature 
must be considered as deformed by the temporary incli- 
nations of the senses. 5 Hence the theory of the three 
" parts " 6 of the soul. This theory, although represented 
mythically in the Phcedrus (consistent with its subject 
matter), became in the Pejjublic an entirely dogmatic basis 
of ethics. There is the part that is related to the Ideas, 
the directing, reasoning part (rjyeiuLovifcov, Xo^lo-tlkov). 
Then there are the two passionate (affektvolle) parts. One 
is the nobler : it is the strong activity of will (tfu/zo?, 6u/no- 
ecSe^y The other, less noble, consists of sensuous appetites 
(eTTcOvfirjTiKov, (fuXoxprjfjLarov). These three parts appear 
in the Phcedrus and the Republic as the Forms (ecSrj) of 

1 Phcedo, 78 f. * Tbid., 105d. 

3 ofxoioTaTov, ibid., 80 b. 4 Rep., 617 f. 

5 Ibid., 611 f. 6 Phcedrus, 246 f. 



206 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

activity of the soul in its unity. Hence in the Phmdrus, 
also, the soul that is described there as a unity, unites in 
itself in the next life all the functions that in the dialogues 
are ascribed to its three parts. 1 The myths of the Timceus 
for the first time expressly speak of the fieprj, of which the 
soul is composed, and treat the parts as separable, in 
such a way that one part, the i>ot)?, 2 is immortal, the others 
mortal. 

Jas. Steger, Plat. Studien, III. ; Die plat. Psychologle 
(Innsbruck, 1872) ; P. Wildauer, Die Psy. des Willens, II. 
(Innsbruck, 1879); H. Siebeck, Geseh.der Psy., I. 1, 187 f . ; 
Sehulthess, Plat. Forschungen (Bonn, 1875). 

Plato's psychology was by no means only a result of his 
theory of nature, but was a metaphysical presupposition for it, 
resting upon ethical and epistemological motives. This is 
shown in the beginning of the myth in the Timmus. Pre- 
existence is supposed to explain our knowledge about Ideas 
(by avdfivrja-Ls) , and on the other hand to explain our guilt, on 
account of which the supersensible soul is bound in an earthly 
body (see myth in Plimdrus). The post-existence of the soul, 
on the other hand, makes possible not only the striving of the 
soul to reach beyond earthly life after a completer identification 
with the world of Ideas, but above all it makes possible moral 
recompense. Thereupon Plato illuminated this teaching every- 
where by mythical representations of judgment at death, of 
wanderings of souls, etc. (see G or gias, Republic, Phmdo). Con- 
sequently, however weak the proofs may be which Plato had 
adduced for individual immortalit}', yet his absolute belief in it 
is one of the chief points of his teaching. Of the arguments 
on which he founded this belief, the most valuable is that 
wherein he {Phcedo, 86 f.) contended against the Pythagorean 
definition of the soul as the harmony of the body by the proof 
of the soul's substantial independence through its control over 
the body. 3 His weakest argument is that in which the Phcedo 

1 In the Phcedrus that previous determination of the soul is ascribed 
to the sense appetites, which explains the errors of earthly life. In the 
Phcedo, the fortunes of the soul after death are made dependent on the 
adherence of its sensuality. Pre-existence and post-existence are ascribed 
in both cases to the whole soul. ' 2 Tim., 69 f. 

8 The Mendelssohn copy of the Phcedo (Berl. 1764) especially raises 
this point in the spirit of the philosophy of the Enlightenment. 



MATERIALISM AND IDEALISM 207 

sums up and crowns all the other arguments : a' dialectic sub- 
reption from the double meaning of the word aOdvaros, in which 
the soul is explained as immortal because it can exist in no 
other way than as a living thing (Phwdo, 105 f.). Compare 
K. F. Hermann, De immortalitatis 7iotione in Plat. Phcedone 
(Marburg, 1835) ; id. de partibus animce immortalibus (Gott, 
1850) ; K. Ph. Fischer, Plat, de immortalitate animas doctrina 
(Erlangen, 1845) ; P. Zimmermann, Die Uhsterblichkeit der 
Seele in Plat. Phced. (Leipzig, 1869) ; G. Teichmiiller, Studien, 
I. 107 f. 

The relationship of the three parts to the essence of the soul 
is very difficult, and is not made perfectly clear. Plato main- 
tains clearly, on the whole, the unity of the soul, but only in a 
few places particularly emphasizes it. On the one hand, the 
Phmdrus makes all the three parts belong to the essence of 
the individual, in order to make conceivable the fall of the soul 
in its pre-existence. On the other hand, it appears as if both 
the lower parts originated in the union of soul and body, and on 
that account again were stripped off entirely from the true essence 
of the soul (vovs) after a virtuous life (Pep., 611 ; Phcedo> 
83). The abrupt and direct opposition of the two worlds made 
this troublesome point in his system (Pep., 435 f.). So also 
the specific psychological meaning of the three parts, whose 
origin is made clear by ethical evaluation, is undetermined. 
In spite of some similarities, this division is in no wise identical 
with the present-day psychology and its customary triple division 
into ideas, sensations, and desires. For the <uo-0>jo-eis did not, 
according to Plato, belong to the XoyiariKov, but must, although 
he has not expressly stated it, be ascribed to both the other 
parts. On the other hand, there belong to the vovs not only the 
knowledge of Ideas, but also the virtuous determination of the 
will, which, according to Socrates, corresponds to that knowledge. 
We come nearest to the Platonic thought when we think of the 
life of the soul as ordered into three different degrees of worth. 
Each degree has its own theoretic and practical functions in 
such a way that the lower functions may exist without the 
higher, but the higher appear — at least in this life — in con- 
nection with the lower. So plants have I-kiQv^tikov ( Tim., 11 ; 
Pep., 441); animals have 0v/zoeiSe? in addition to IttiOv^tlkov ; 
and men have, besides these two functions, the Aoyio-riKoV. The 
vovs is localized in the brain, 0v/xos in the heart, and hrSv^la in 
the liver. 1 

In the application of this to ethnography, he claimed for the 

1 Agreeing with Democritus. 



208 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

Greeks the excellence of Xxt/lotlkov (Republic, 435 e), allowed 
to the warlike barbarians of the north the predominance of 
Bvpos, and to the weak barbarians of the south that of iTnOvfjLLa. 

Upon the basis of this psychological theory, Plato went 
beyond not only the abstract simplicity of the Socratic 
theory of virtue, but also the ascetic one-sidedness of his 
own first negative statements. That moral conduct alone 
makes man truly blessed 1 in this or the other life, 2 is his 
fundamental conviction. But even if he was inclined to 
find this true happiness only in the most complete perfec- 
tion of the soul, in which happiness the soul is a sharer in 
the divine world of Ideas ; and even if therefore he refused 3 
as unworthy of the soul every utilitarian principle of con- 
ventional ethics, yet he recognized other kinds of happiness 
as justifiable moments of the highest Good. These kinds 
of happiness are all which, in the entire sweep of the soul's 
activities, appear as true and noble joys. The Philebus 4 
develops such a graded series of goods. Plato contended 
also, in this dialogue, against the theory that would find the 
re\os 5 only in sense pleasure. But against the view of 
those who explain all pleasure as only illusory, he held fast 
to the reality of a pure and painless sense-pleasure, 6 and he 
contended against the one-sided view that sought true hap- 
piness only in insight. 7 But while he on the other hand 
recognized the legitimacy of intellectual pleasure, he laid 
claim to it not only for rational knowledge (vovs), but also 
for correct ideas in every science and art. 8 Above all this, 
however, he set the participation in ideal evaluations and 

1 Rep., 353- f. 

2 Compare entire conclusion of Rep., Books IX., X. 
8 Rep., 362 ; Thecet., 176 ; Phcedo, 68 f. 

4 See Laws, 717 f., 728 f. 5 As already seen in Gorgias. 

6 Supposably Democritus. 

7 These statements could he aimed just as well against Antisthenes, 
Euclid, or Democritus {Phileb., 21, 60). 

8 Phileb., 62 f. 



MATERIALISM AND IDEALISM 209 

their actualization in individual activity. 1 All the beauty 
and vitality of Greece was amalgamated here in the tran- 
scendental ideal of the philosopher, and a similar union 
of the two sides of reality was already suggested in the 
series of objects which the Symposium* develops as the 
working of the e/x»?. 

A. Trendelenburg, De Plat. Philebus consilio (Berlin, 1837) ; 
Fr. Susemihl, Ueber die Gutertafel im Philebus (Philol. 1863) ; 
R. Hirzel, De bonis in fine Philebi enumeratis (Leipzig, 1868). 

However, Plato founded the development of his theory 
of virtue in a still more systematic way upon his triple 
divisions of the soul. While his first dialogues took pains 
to reduce the single virtues to the Socratic eZSo? of knowl- 
edge, the later dialogues proceeded upon the theory of the 
distinct independence and the respective limitations of the 
particular virtues. In so far as the one or the other part 
of the soul preponderates in different men according to 
their dispositions, 3 are they suited to developing one or 
another virtue. For every part of the soul has its own 
perfection, which is called its virtue and is grounded in its 
essence. 4 Accordingly Plato constructed a group of four 
cardinal virtues which at that time were beginning to be 
frequently mentioned in literature. There is the virtue 
of wisdom (jjofyia) corresponding to the rjye/jLovircov ; that of 
will-power (avhpla), corresponding to the Ov/jboeiSes ; that of 
self-control (aco^poavvT]), corresponding to the iirLOv/jLrjrtKov. 
Finally, since the perfection of the whole soul consists 5 in 
the right relations of the single parts, in the fulfilment of 
the soul's particular task through every one of these parts 
Qra eavrov irpdrreiv), and in the regulative control of 

1 Phileb., 66 f. 2 Symp., 208 f. 

3 Rep., 410 f. * Rep., Ml f. 

6 In the entire Republic the ascetic thought of stripping off the lower 
parts of the soul is entirely put aside. 

14 



210 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

reason over the two other parts, 1 so we have as a fourth 
virtue that of an equable arrangement of the whole. This 
last is called by Plato BiKatoo-vprj. 2 

The last term, which is scarcely understandable from 
the point of view of individual ethics, arises from the 
peculiar derivation which Plato has given to these virtues 
in the Republic. Loyal to the motive of the theory of 
Ideas, the Platonic ethics sketched not so much the ideal of 
the individual as that of the species ; it pictured less the 
perfect man than the perfect society. The Platonic ethics 
is primarily social ethics. It does not treat of the happi- 
ness of the individuals, but that of the whole, 3 and this 
happiness can be reached only in the perfect state. The 
ethics of Plato perfected itself in his teaching of the ideal 
state. 

K. F. Hermann, Die historischen JElemente des platonischen 
Idealstaates (Gesch. Abhandl., 1 32 f.) ; Ed. Zeller, Der plat. 
Staat in seiner Bedeutung fur die Folgezeit ( Vortrage und 
Abhandl, I. 62 f.) ; C. Nohle, Die Staatslehre Plat.'s in Hirer 
geschichtlichen Entwickelung (Jena, 1880). 

Whatever 4 may be the natural and historical origin of 
the state, its task is the same everywhere, according to 
Plato : viz., so to direct the common life of man that all 
may be happy through virtue. The task can be accom- 

1 Since already o-oxfrpoavvr) is possible only through the right rule of 
the appetites, aaxppoo-vvr) and diKaioavpr) are not mutually exclusive. 
Compare Zeller, II 3 . 749 f. 

9 ' The most usual verbal translation, justice, concerns only the politi- 
cal, not the moral spirit of the case. Righteousness does not fully state 
the Platonic meaning. 

3 Precisely on that account the philosopher must share in public life, 
even if he would find his happiness only in his turning from the earthly 
and in his devotion to the divine. See above ; also Rep., 519 f. 

4 The first book of the Republic develops critically the views of the 
Sophists on this point. How far in the representation of the genesis of 
the state, given in the second book (-369 f.), positive and negative 
analogies appear, cannot be discussed here. 



MATEKIALISM AND IDEALISM 211 

plished only by ordering all the relations of society accord- 
ing to the principles of man's moral nature. The perfect 
state is divided into three distinct parts, like the soul of 
man. There are the producers, the warriors, and the admin- 
istrators. The great mass of citizens (S%to? ; yecopyol teal 
tyfAiovpyoi), corresponding to the eTriOv^Tiicov or (jxXo- 
Xprj/jLciTov, are entrusted with providing for the material 
foundation of the life of the state by caring for its daily 
needs ; and they are prompted to make this provision by 
their own sensuous appetites. The warriors and officials 
(eTrUovpoi), corresponding to the Ovfioei&es in the unselfish 
fulfilment of duty, have to guard the state externally by 
repelling invasion, internally by executing the laws. The 
rulers, finally {ap^ovres), corresponding to Xoyia-riKov or 
rjyefjbovLKou, determine, according to their insight, the legis- 
lation and the principles of administration. The perfection 
however of the entire state — its " virtue " — is justice 
(Slkcuoo-vvt}), 1 that every one may get his right. Justice 
consists in these three classes having their proper distribu- 
tion of power, while at the same time every one fulfils his 
own peculiar task. Therefore the rulers must have the 
highest culture and wisdom (cro(/>/a), the warriors an 
undaunted devotion to duty (dvSpici), and the people an 
obedience which curbs the appetites (aaxppoo-vvr}). 

The constitution of the ideal state for Plato is an aristoc- 
racy in the strictest sense of the word. It is a rule of the 
best, — the wise and virtuous. It places all legislation and 
the entire direction of society in the hand of the class of 
the scientifically cultured (^ikoao^oi). 2 The task of the 

1 Therefore the corresponding virtue of the individual, the ethical 
equilibrium of the parts of his soul, is designated by the same name. 

2 Thus must the celebrated sentence (Rep., 473 d) be understood. 
There will be no end to the sorrow of man until the philosophers (the 
scientifically cultured) rule or the rulers are philosophers (are scientifi- 
cally cultured). 



212 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

second class is to execute practically the orders of the 
highest class, and to maintain the state and preserve its 
interests both internally and externally. The mass of 
mankind have to work and obey. 

Since, however, the object of the state does not consist in 
the securing of any merely outward benefit, but in the 
virtue of all its citizens, Plato demanded that the individ- 
ual should merge himself entirely in the state, and that the 
state should embrace and determine the entire life of its 
citizens. Plato thus went beyond the political principle of 
the Greeks. The development which this idea found in 
the social organization of the 7ro\ireia was restricted, 
nevertheless, to the two higher classes, which were taken 
together under the name of " guardians " {fyvkcuces). For 
the mass of the S^o? there is accessible no virtue founded 
on knowledge, but only the conventional virtue of society, 
which is enforced by the strict execution of the laws and 
attained through utilitarian considerations. The Platonic 
politics leaves therefore the third class to itself. In its 
desire for acquisition, this class is moved by a fundamen- 
tally sensuous motive ; and it performs its duty when 
by its labor it furnishes the material foundation for the life 
of the state, and yields to the guidance of the " guardians." 
But the prenatal and present life of the " guardians " are 
to be controlled by the state. Impressed by the importance 
of the propagation of the species, Plato would not leave 
marriage to the voluntary action of the individual, but de- 
cided that the rulers of the state should provide for the 
right constitution of the following generation by a fitting 
choice of parents. 1 Education of the youth in all depart- 
ments belongs to the state, and gives equal attention to 
bodily and spiritual development. In the latter it pro- 
gresses from folk-lore and myths through elementary 
instruction to poetry and music, and thence through math- 
i Rep., 416 b. 



MATERIALISM AND IDEALISM 213 

ematical training to interest in philosophy, and, finally, to 
the knowledge of the Idea of the Good. In the different 
steps of this education, which is the same for all the chil- 
dren of the two higher classes, those children are pruned 
out by the state officials that no longer seem to show fitness 
of disposition and development for the higher tasks. Dif- 
ferent grades of officials and warriors are thus formed from 
these. This sifting process leaves ultimately the dlite, who 
succeed to the position of archons and dedicate their lives 
partly to the furthering of science and partly to the admin- 
istration of the state. Herein are the two upper classes a 
great family ; every form of private possession is renounced, 1 
and their external wants are cared for by the state support, 
which is furnished by the third class. 

The Platonic state was accordingly to be an institution 
for the education of society. Its highest aim was to pre- 
pare man by the sensible for the supersensible world, by 
the earthly for the divine life. The social-religious ideal is 
that which floats before the philosopher in his methodical 
delineation of the " best " state. As all the higher interests 
of man will be included by this social community of life, so 
the philosopher believed that the state should have exclu- 
sive control not only of education and science but also of 
art and religion. Only that art shall be allowed whose 
imitative 2 activity is directed upon the Ideas, especially the 
Idea of the Good. 3 The Greek KaXotcdyaOia consisted in 
the evaluation of everything beautiful as good. Plato 
reversed the order of this thought by establishing only the 
good as the really beautiful. In the same way the ideal 
state accepts in the main the myths and the culture of the 
Greek state religion as educational material for the third 
class of society, and partly also for the second class, espe- 
cially in childhood. 4 But the state expunges from the 

1 Rep., 41G b. 2 Ibid., 313. 

3 Ibid., 376 f. 4 Ibid., 369 f. 



214 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

myths all things immoral and ambiguous, and permits their 
use only as the symbolical representations of ethical truths. 
The religion of the philosophers, however, consists in sci- 
ence and virtue, of which the highest goal is the attainment 
of likeness to the Idea of the Good, — the Godhead. 

Plato did not conceive his city as an imaginary Utopia, but in 
all earnestness as a practicable ideal. He employed therefore 
in many particulars, especially in social arrangements, numerous 
features of the then existing Greek states, and he preferred, natu- 
rally enough, the stricter and more aristocratic ordinances of the 
Doric race. Though he was convinced that out of the existing 
circumstances his ideal could be realized only through force, 1 
3^et he had none the less faith that if his proposal were tried, he 
would bestow upon his citizens lasting content, and would make 
them strong and victorious against all foreign attack. In the 
incomplete dialogue, Critias, the philosopher tried to develop 
this thought, — that the state founded on culture should show 
itself superior to the Atlantis, the state founded on mere ex- 
ternal power. An idealizing of the Persian wars probably floats 
before him. The description is broken off at the very beginning, 
and there is wonderful similarity in the picture of the Atlantis 
to the institutions of former American civilizations. 

As to details, we should make a comparison of the Republic 
with all of Plato's other writings. The Politicus offers many 
similar thoughts, but with the interweaving of much that is 
foreign, and it has predilection for monarchical forms of govern- 
ment. It deviates from the Republic, especially in its theory of 
the different kinds of constitutions, contrasting three worse 
forms with three better. 2 The kingdom is contrasted to the 
tyranny, the aristocracy to the oligarchy, the constitutional to 
the lawless democracy. Inexact sketches are drawn of the 
seventh, or best, state in contrast to these. In the Republic* 
Plato used his psychology to show how the worse constitutions 
come from the deterioration of the ideal states. These are the 
timocracy in which the ambitious rule, the predominance of the 
(9u/xoeiSe? ; the oligarchy in which the avaricious rule, the pre- 
dominance of the iTnOvfirjTiKov ; the democracy or realm of uni- 
versal license; and, finally, the tyranny or the unfettering of 
the most disgraceful arbitrary power. 

The aristocratic characteristics of the Platonic state corre- 
spond not only to the personal convictions of Plato and his 

1 Rep., 540 d. 2 p u Li) 302 f. 3 Rep ^ 545 L 



MATERIALISM AND IDEALISM 215 

great teacher, but are developed necessarily from the thought 
that scientific culture can be obtained only by the very few. 
In scientific culture is the highest virtue of man, and his only 
title to political administration (Gorgias). Likewise, the exclu- 
sion of all non-intellectual labor from the two directing classes 
is consistent with the universal Greek prejudice against the 
proletariat. However, it is justified by Plato in the reflection 
that all true labor presupposes love for its task, or brings love 
with it ; and according!}', that all manual work necessarily lowers 
the soul to the sensuous, and makes distant its supersensible 
goal. From the same motive came the exclusion of family life 
and private possessions. It is misleading to speak here of a 
communism. The community of wives, children, and goods is 
expressly delimited to the two higher classes. This was not to 
satisfy a claim for universal equality, as was the case in the 
naturalistic investigations of radical Cynicism, but, on the 
contrary, to prevent private interest from interfering in any 
way with the devotion of the warrior and ruler to the welfare 
of the state. It is, in a word, a sacrifice made to the Idea 
of the Good. 

The peculiar character of the ethics of Plato, and at the same 
time its tendency to go beyond actual Greek life, consisted in 
the complete subordination of the individual life to the purpose 
of the political whole. In contrast to the degenerating Hellenic 
culture the philosopher held an ideal picture of political society, 
which could first actually be when the Platonic thought predom- 
inated : that all earthly life has value and meaning only as an 
education for a higher supersensible existence. To a certain 
extent the hierarchy of the Middle Ages realized the Platonic 
state but with the priests in place of the philosophers. Other 
moments of the Platonic ideal — for example, the control of 
science by the state — have been realized also to some extent in 
the public measures of some modern nations. 

Concerning Plato's theory of education see Alex. Kapp 
(Minden, 1833) ; E. Sne tillage (Berlin, 1834) ; Volquardsen 
(Berlin, 1860) ; K. Benrath (Jena, 1871) ; concerning his atti- 
tude toward art, K. Justi, Die msth. Elemente in der plat. Phi- 
los. (Marburg, I860) ; concerning his attitude toward religion, 
F. Ch. Bauer, Das Cliristliche des Platonismns (Tubingen, 1873). 
Compare, also, S. A. Byk, Hellenismus und Platonismus (Leipzig, 
1870). 

Similarly Plato's ethics also experienced as disadvan- 
tageous a later transformation in the Laivs as his theoretic 



216 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

philosophy in the lectures of his old age. In pessimistic 1 
despair 2 as to the realization of his political ideal, the phi- 
losopher attempted to sketch a morally ordered community 
without the controlling influence of the theory of Ideas 
and its devotees. In the place of philosophy^ on the one 
hand religion presented itself in a form much nearer to the 
national mode of thought, and on the other mathematics 
with its Pythagorean tendencies to music and astronomy. 
Philosophical culture was replaced by practical prudence 3 
((frpovycris), and precise conformity to law and the Socratic 
virtue by a moderate dependence on ancient worthy cus- 
toms. Thus the state in the Republic changed, when it 
appeared in the later writings, into a mixture of monar- 
chico-oligarchic and democratic elements, — the ideal power 
into a compromise with historical conditions. Moreover, 
all this is set before us in a long-winded, unconcentrated 
presentation, which seems to be wanting the last finishing 
touches and the final redaction. 4 

Just because the Laws give details of contemporaneous life, 
they are of high antiquarian, even if of very little philosophical 
value. They represent so great a deterioration, not only from 
the theory of Ideas, but from Plato's entire idealistic thought, 
that the doubts which have been wisely put aside again as to 
their genuineness are } T et entirely conceivable. Compare Th. 
Oncken, Staatslehre des Arist., 197 f. ; E. Zeller, II 3 . 809 f. ; the 
five essays by Th. Bergk, concerning the History of Greek 
Philosophy and Astronomy (Leipzig, 1883) ; E. Preetorius, De 
legibus Plat. (Bonn, 1884). 

37. The epistemological dualism of the theory of Ideas 
allowed and demanded a dogmatic statement concerning 
ethical norms of human life, but no equivalent recognition 

1 Laws, 644. The conviction as to the badness of the world grew up 
here to the extent of a belief in an evil world-soul, which works against 
the divine, soul. Compare § 37. See Laws, 896 f. 

2 Ibid., 739 f. 

3 Ibid., 712, in exact antithesis to Rep., 473. 

4 Ibid., 746 f. 



MATERIALISM AND IDEALISM 217 

of nature phenomena. For although Plato had fully deter- 
mined that the tasks of metaphysics lay in regarding the 
Ideas and especially the Idea of the Good as the cause of 
the sense-world, that world nevertheless remained to him 
as before a realm of Becoming and Destruction. According 
to the premises of his philosophy, this realm could never 
be the object of dialectic or true knowledge. The point of 
view of the theory of Ideas presupposes a teleological view 
of nature, but it offers no knowledge of nature. 

In his latter days, complying with the needs of his 
school, Plato drew natural science also within the realm of 
his research and theory, — which science he in the spirit 
of Socrates had earlier entirely avoided. He, nevertheless, 
remained always true to his earlier conviction, and empha- 
sized it with great clearness and sharpness at the beginning 
of the Ti?nceus, in which the result of these investigations 
was set down. 1 This was to the effect that there can be no 
iiria-rri/jLrj of the Becoming and destruction of things, but 
only ttictt^: no science, but only a probable conclusion. 
He claimed therefore for his theory of nature, not the value 
of truth, but only of probability. The presentations in the 
Timceus are only el/cores /jlv0oc, and, however closely related 
to his theory of Ideas, they nevertheless form no integral 
part of its metaphysics. 

Aug. Bockh, Be Platonica corporis mundani fabrica (Heidel- 
berg, 1809) ; Untersuchungen uber das kosmiscJie System des Plat. 
(Berlin, 1852) ; H. Martin. Etudes sur le Timee (2 vols., Paris, 
1841). 

Plato's philosophy of nature stands, then, not in the same, but 
in a very similar relationship to the metaphysic of his theory of 
Ideas, as the hypothetical physics of Parmenides to his theory of 
Being. In both cases it seems to have been a regard for the needs 

1 Tim., 28 f; which discussion, 27 d, begins with the recapitulation of 
the theory of the two worlds. The relation of the philosophy of nature 
to the theory of Ideas is characterized most exactly by sentence 29 c; 
on nep npos yeveariv ovaia, tovto irpbs ti'mttw dXrjdeia. 



218 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

and wishes of the pupils that occasioned their descending from 
interest in permanent Being to an experimental interest in 
the changeable. Plato designated expressly this pla}' with the 
cikotcs fxvdot as the only permissible diversion from his dialectic, 
which was his life-work (Tim., 59 a). Although a critical and 
often, indeed, polemical consideration of existing opinions ap- 
peared here, the formal moment of which Diels (Aufs. z. Zeller- 
Jub., 254 f.) made of great importance in Parmenides, Plato took 
account of the fact that a school that had a school-membership 
of the organization and range of the Academy could not hold 
itself indefinitely aloof from natural science, and that such a 
school would be obliged finally to come to some terms or other. 1 
While, however, upon the basis of the theo^ of Ideas a perfect 
knowledge of the comparative worth of the individual, society, 
and history could be obtained, yet the determination of the 
reality of nature through the Idea of the Good was not to be 
developed with equal certainty as to details. Suppose, then, 
physics and ethics to be the two wings of the Platonic edifice, 
the ethical wing is like the main portion of the edifice in style 
and material ; the physics is, however, a lighter, temporary 
structure, and is merely an imitation of the forms of the other. 

That which pressed upon the philosopher and was treated by 
him with careful reserve was, remarkably enough, made of the 
greatest importance by his disciples in later centuries. The 
teleological physics of Plato was regarded through Hellenistic 
time and the entire Middle Ages as his most important achieve- 
ment, while the theory of Ideas was pressed more or less into 
the background. Relationships to religious conceptions are 
chiefly accountable for this, but still more the natural circum- 
stance that the school had an especial fondness for the more 
tangible and useful part of his teaching. This explains why 
already Aristotle (De an., I. 2, 404 b, 16) contended against 
the myths of the Timceus as though they were serious state- 
ments of doctrine. 

The basis for the myths of the Timceus is the metaphys- 
ics of the Philebus. The sense world consists of infinite 
space, and the particular mathematical forms which that 
space had taken on in order to represent the Ideas. But 
conceptual knowledge cannot be given of the efficacy of 
these highest purposes. Consequently the Timceus begins 

1 Concerning the influence of Eudoxus, see H. Usener, Preuss. Jahrl., 
LIII. 15 f. 



MATERIALISM AND IDEALISM 219 

by personifying this efficacy mythologically as the world- 
forming God, the Brj/Movpyos. It is purposeful force ; it 
is good, and because of its good-will has made the world. 1 
In the act of creation it had in view the Ideas, those pure 
unitary forms of which the world is a copy. 2 The world 
is therefore the most perfect, best, and most beautiful, 3 and 
since it is the product of divine reason and goodness, it is 
the only world. 

The perfectness of the one world which is reasserted with 
especial solemnit}' at the end of the Timceus, is a necessary 
requisite of the teleological basis of thought. The denial of the 
opposite proposition, that there are numberless worlds (Tim., 
31 a), appears as a polemic against Democritus, especially in 
connection with what immediately precedes (30 a). According 
to Democritus' mechanical principle, the vortices arise here and 
there in the midst of chaotic motion, and out of these the 
worlds arise. According to Plato, the ordering God forms only 
one world, and that the most perfect. 

That, however, this world corresponds not perfectly with 
the Ideas, 4 but only as closely as possible, is due to the 
second principle of the sense world, to space into which 
God has built the world. Space is known neither by 
thought 5 nor sense. It is neither a concept nor percept, 
Idea nor sense object. It is the /x?) 6v or what possesses 
no Being, without which the ovrcos 6v could not appear, 
nor the Ideas 6 be copied in sense things. It 7 is the gwalriov 
in comparison to the true clLtiov', and so also the things 
formed in it in the individual processes of the world are 
%vvaiTia? They form a natural necessity {ava^jicr]) 9 beside 

i Tim., 29 c. 2 Ibid., 30 c. 

3 The teleological motive of the teaching of Anaxagoras, which 
was accepted already in the Phcedo, forms one of the fundamental 
teachings of the Timceus. 

4 Tim., 30 a, 46 c. 5 Ibid., 52. 

6 Which are midway between Being and not-Being. Rep., 477 f. 

7 Tim., 68 e, meaning a second kind of curia. 

8 Ibid., 46 c ; Phoedo, 96 f. 

9 Tim., 48 a, another term used completely in Democritan sense. 



220 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

the divine reason, which necessity under certain circum- 
stances stands in the way of the teleological activity of the 
divine reason. Space x (^copa, totto?) is that wherein the 
cosmic process comes to pass QeKelvo ev & ^l^ veTa i) which 
takes on all bodily forms (<£uo-t? rd irdvra aco/jiara Be^o/uievr), 
also the rj Be^afievi] or viroSo^r) t?)? yevecrecoi^), and is in- 
determinate plasticity {afjbopfyov i/c/nayetov^). Out of this 
Nothingness 2 God creates the world. 

The identity of Platonic " matter" of the rpirov yeVos (Tim., 
48 f.) with empty space is most certainly proved by his con- 
struction of the elements out of triangles (see below), in which 
connection the philosopher identified the mathematical body 
immediately with the physical body. See also J. P. Wohlstein, 
Materie und Weltseele im platonischen System (Marburg, 1863). 

The cosmos must also, as the most perfectly perceivable 
thing, possess reason and soul. The first task of the de- 
miurge in the creation of a world is the creation of a world- 
soul. 3 As the life-principle of the All, the world-soul must 
unite in itself its Form-determining capacity, its motion and 
its consciousness. The world-soul is the mean between the 
unitary (the Idea) and the divisible (Space), and possesses 
the opposite qualities of sameness (tclvtov) and change 
(Odrepov). It holds in itself all numbers and dimensions. 
It is itself the mathematical form of the cosmos, is distrib- 
uted by the demiurge into harmonious relations, in which 
distribution an inner circle of changing motions and an 
outer circle of uniformity (the place of the fixed stars and 
planets) is to be distinguished. The latter is again divided 
proportionately within itself. By means of these circles, 
each moved according to its own nature, the world-soul is 
supposed to have set the entire cosmos into motion. By 
means of this motion, permeating the whole and returning 4 
to itself, the world-soul created in itself and in individual 

1 Tim., 49 f. 2 Compare the claims of Democritus. 

3 Tim., 35 f. 4 Ibid., 37. 



MATERIALISM AND IDEALISM 221 

things consciousness, perception, and thought. The most 
perfect kind of knowledge, however, is the circular move- 
ment of the stars, which continually returns to itself. 

The particulars of this extremely imaginative description of 
the Timceus are obscure, and have been subject to controversy 
(see Zeller, II 3 . 646 ff.). The tendency toward the number 
theory of the Pythagoreans as well as toward their astronomy 
and harmonics is unmistakable. In the division of the world- 
soul, with which the divisions of the astronomical world are 
identical, harmonic proportion and arithmetical means play the 
chief role. The important thought is that with this general 
division of the mass and motions of the cosmos, a perpetual 
definiteness of form (71-epas) belongs to space, which is a com- 
panion principle of the aireipov in the JPMlebus (§ 35). The 
mathematical was therefore not for Plato entirely identical with 
the world-soul ; but it was in the most intimate connection with 
it, and was in a similar intermediary position between the Ideas 
and the sense world. 

The characteristic of the Platonic theory of motion is that it 
referred all motions of individual objects to the teleologically 
determined motion of the whole. It thus was in antipodal 
opposition to Atomism, which considered motion to be an inde- 
pendent function of single atoms. It is remarkable that the 
Timceus emphasizes many times (Zeller, II 3 . 663, 3) the con- 
nection, nay the identity, between motions and intellections. 
The " right idea " is referred, for example, to the Odrepov, to 
irregular motions ; rational knowledge, on the other hand, is re- 
ferred to ravrov, the uniform, circular motions (Tim., 37). 1 It 
is also here characteristic that all particular acts are referred to 
the universal functioning power of the world-soul. Thus to the 
world-soul is lacking the characteristic of personality. 

The further mathematical formation (irepa<i) of empty 
space is accomplished in the individual things, which have 
been introduced by the demiurge into the harmonious sys- 
tem of the world-soul ; and, firstly, in the formation of the 
elements (o-To^eZa). Besides an artificial deduction of their 
fourfold number, 2 which introduced air and water as the two 

1 If in these theories any use is made of Democritus — which I re- 
gard by no means improbable — his teachings have, at any rate, received 
an independent treatment. 

2 Tim., 31 f. 



222 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

means between fire and earth, Plato 2 gave a stereometrical 
development from these four elements, which development, 
as among the Pythagoreans, presents the four regular 
bodies as the fundamental forms of the elements. The 
tetrahedron is the fundamental form of fire; the octa- 
hedron, of the air; the icosahedron, of the water; the 
cube, of the earth. He conceived, however, these funda- 
mental bodies as constructed out of planes, and indeed of 
right-angle triangles which are sometimes isosceles, and 
sometimes of such a nature that the catheti stand in the 
ratio of one to two. 2 With this construction the transfor- 
mation of space into corporeal matter seemed to be con- 
ceived. From the different magnitudes and numbers of 
these indivisible plane-triangles 3 were next derived with 
clever fancifulness the physical and chemical qualities of 
individual stuffs, their distribution in space, their mingling, 
and the continuous motion in which they exist. 

Plato also believed that the individual elements and stuffs are 
in a determined part of space according to the predominating 
mass, to which the scattered parts then strive to return. It is 
not entirely clear how he introduced the relationships of weight 
into this thought. At any rate, he had been sensible of the 
fact that the direction from above downward cannot be re- 
garded as absolute ; but that in the world-sphere only the two 
directions, to the centre and to the periphery, exist. 

Plato's astronomical views differ from those of the Py- 
thagoreans essentially in his acceptance of the stationari- 
ness of the earth. According to his theory, the earth rested 
like a sphere in the middle of a spherical-shaped world-all. 
Around the " diamond " axle of this world with daily 
revolution from east to west swings in the outermost periph- 

1 Tim., 53 f. 

2 The square is constructed out of the former ; the equilateral tri- 
angle, of the latter. 

3 Which accordingly take the place of the arofia and a-xw ara of 
Democritus. 



MATERIALISM AND IDEALISM 223 

ery the heaven of the fixed stars, in which the single 
stars are conceived as " visible gods " * in continuous per- 
fect movement upon their own axes. That revolution is 
communicated to the seven spheres, viz., the five planets, 
the sun and the moon. These intersect the first circle (of 
the fixed stars) in the direction of the zodiac. The planets, 
sun and moon, have, however, within their orbits their own 
reverse movements of differing velocity. 

The last proposition as an astronomical explanation of the 
apparent irregularity of the movements of the planets, remained 
for a long time authoritative. The methodical principle 
lying at its basis has been strikingly formulated by Plato or 
his followers in the question : tlv<dv v7TOT€#eio-oov o/xaXwv /ecu reray- 
/xtvoiv KLvrjtrciav StaaoyOrj ra Trtpl tol? KwtfcreLs tmv TrX.avo)^i€V(DV cpawo- 

fieva (comp. Simplicius with Aristotle, De ccelo, 119). 

The theory of motion in the Timceus concludes with a 
detailed account of the psycho-physical process of percep- 
tion. 2 It is concerned with establishing those conditions 
of motion of external objects and of the body which call 
forth the motions of the soul, its sensations and feelings. 3 
With great pains in this connection the investigations of 
the physiologists, just as the theory of Protagoras, 4 were 
adjusted to the teleological theory of motion. Since the 
subjective moment is, moreover, separated from the objec- 
tive in atcT0r)(TL<;, the nature philosophy confirms the episte- 
mological point of departure which the Thecetetus had illu- 
minated. 

Finally, by way of appendix, the Timceus gives a sketch 
of a theory of diseases and their cures, and thus yields to 
the encyclopaedic demands of the Platonic school. 

1 Tim., 40 a. 

2 Ibid., 61 f. For details, see H. Siebeck, Gesch. der Psych., I., 1, 
201 f. 

3 In this respect the exposition of the Timceus is supplemented by 
that of the Republic and the Philebus, while it develops empirically the 
theoretical principles of the Thecetetus. 

4 And perhaps much also which belongs to Democritus. 



224 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 



6. ARISTOTLE. 

A career of nearly forty years in teaching gathered a 
large number of superior men around Plato, and gave to 
the operations of his school, in its treatment of ethico-his- 
torical and scientific medical studies, that comprehensive- 
ness of which indications appeared in his later dialogues. 1 
To the stately number of men that belonged to the school 
more or less closely, empirical research owed much valu- 
able enrichment in the immediately succeeding time, but 
philosophy gained at their hands scarcely anything worthy 
of mention. Only the one man, Plato's greatest pupil, 
who it is true did not remain in the ranks of the Academy, 
but founded a school of his own, was called to bring to 
completion the history of Greek philosophy with his won- 
derful system of thought. This man was Aristotle. 

The history of the Academy is generally divided into three 
and perhaps five periods : the Older Academy, which lasted 
about a century after the death of Plato ; the Middle Academy, 
which filled out the second century, in which period we distin- 
guish two successive schools, that of Archesilaus and that of 
Carneades ; the New Academy, which extended to neo-Platonism, 
and in which the dogmatic movement advocated by Philo of 
Larissa is to be distinguished from a later eclecticism of Anti- 
ochus of Ascalon. The two later phases belong to the syncretic 
skepticism of Greek philosophy. For general comparisons, see 
H. Stein, Sieben Biicher zur Gesch. d. Platonismus (3 vols., Got- 
tingen, 1862-75). 

38. The so-called Older Academy stood entirely under 
the influence of that less healthy tendency which the 
Platonic philosophy in later time had shown theoretically 
toward the Pythagorean number theory and practically 
toward a popular and religious system of morals. Speu- 
sippus (d. 339), the nephew of Plato, took charge of the 

1 See H. Usener, Ueber d. Organisation d. wissenschaftlicJien Arbeit 
im Alterthum (Preuss. Jahrb. 53, 1 ff.) ; E. Hitz, D. Philos. schulen 
Athens {Deutsche Revue, 1884). 



AHISTOTLE 225 

school after Plato, and Xenocrates of Chalcedon followed 
Speusippus. To the same generation belonged Heracleides 
of Pontic Heraclea and Philip of Opus. The astronomer 
Eudoxus of Cnidus and Archytas of Tarentum, head of the 
Pythagoreans of that time, stood in a loose relation to the 
Platonic school. The following generation of the school 
yielded to the spirit of the time, and turned essentially to 
ethical investigations. Polemo of Athens was then head 
of the school, from 314 to 270, and since his gifted pupil, 
Crantor, died before him, Crates of Athens became his 
successor. 

An exact description of all the Academicians of this time is 
in Zeller, II 3 . 836 f. ; F. Bucheler, Acad, philos. index Her cula- 
nensis (Greifswald, 1869). Our knowledge concerning the dif- 
ferent tendencies within the Academy arises from the fact that 
after Plato's death, as Speusippus had been designated by Plato 
to succeed him as scholarch, Xenocrates and Aristotle left 
Athens. The former was afterward chosen to lead the school ; 
the latter somewhat later founded a school of his own. 

Judging by what has come down to us about Speusippus, he 
was a vague and diffuse writer. Diogenes Laertius (IV. 4 f.) 
gives a list of his writings, and these touch upon all parts of 
science. The most appear to have been ko/xvij/xara in reference 
to his career as a teacher. It was these that Aristotle had in 
mind in his frequent and mostly polemical references to Speusip- 
pus. A writing is particularly mentioned which was concerned 
with the Pythagorean number, and so also the "O^uoia, which is 
an encyclopedic collection of the facts of natural history arranged 
by name. Compare Ravaisson, Speiis. deprimis rerum princi- 
piis placita (Paris, 1838) ; M. A. Fischer, De Spjeus. vita 
(Rastadt, 1845). Xenocrates, Plato's companion upon his third 
Sicilian journey, who was distinguished for his strong, serious 
personality, was hardly more significant as a philosopher than 
Speusippus. Diogenes Laertius (IV. 11 f.) mentions the long list 
of his writings. R. Heinze, X. (Leipzig, 1892), gives a compre- 
hensive exposition of his theory with the fragments appended. 
Heracleides came from the Pontic Heraclea, was won over to 
the Academy by Speusippus, and had especially as an astron- 
omer independent importance. Plato passed over to him, dur- 
ing his last journey to Sicily, the leadership of the Academy. 
When after Speusippus' death Xenocrates was chosen scholarch, 

15 



226 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

Ileracleides went to his home and founded there his own school, 
which he administered until after 330. He was a many-sided, 
aesthetically inclined, and productive writer, and he was familiar 
not only with the Platonic and Pythagorean teaching, but also 
with Aristotelianism. Compare Diog. Laert., V. 86 f. ; Rouler, 
He vita et scriptis Her. Pon. (Loewen, 1828) ; E. Deswert, De 
Her. Pon. (Loewen, 1830) ; L. Cohn (in Comment, phil. in hon. 
Reifferscheid, Breslau, 1884). Philip of Opus probably edited 
the Laws of Plato, and was besides the author of the JEpinomis. 
The renowned astronomer Eudoxus (406-353) joined the Acad- 
emy for some time according to the man}' different testimonies of 
the ancients (Zeller, II 3 . 845 f.), and he developed its astronomical 
theories. But on other questions, especially ethical ones, he 
deviated widely from the Academy. A. Bockh, Ueber die 
Vierjahrigen Sonnenkreise der Alien, besonders den eudoxi- 
schen (Berlin, 1863). 

Among the later Pythagoreans, Archytas was pre-eminent. 
In the first half of the fourth century he played a great role in 
his native city, Tarentum, as scholar, statesman, and general. 
Whatever has been transmitted with any assurance concerning 
him and others, shows us that just as the Pythagoreans influ- 
enced Plato in various ways, so also Plato on his side influenced 
to such a degree the Pythagoreans, that the theory of numbers 
in its last phase fused perfectly with the theory of Ideas, which 
was nominally its rival. The significance of Archytas lay in the 
realm of mechanics and astronomy. His philosophy agreed 
throughout with that of the Older Acadenry. On account of 
the close personal relationship in which he stood to Plato, the 
genuineness of those fragments may well be possible in which he 
gave a Platonic turn to Pythagoreanism. These fragments are 
collected by Conr. Orelli (Leipzig, 1827) ; see Mullach, II. 16 f. ; 
G. Hartenstein, De Arch. Tar. frag, philos. (Leipzig, 1833); 
Petersen (Zeitschr. f. Alter tumsicissenschaft, 1836) ; O. Gruppe, 
Hie Frag, des Arch. (Berlin, 1840) ; Fr. Beckmann, He 
Pythagoreorum reliquiis (Berlin, 1844) ; Zeller, V 3 . 103 f . ; 
Eggers, He Arch. Tar. etc. (Paris, 1833). 

Polemo and Crates owe the leadership of the Academy more 
to their Athenian birth and their own moral worthiness than to 
their philosophical significance. Crantor originated in Soli in 
Cilicia, and was known particularly through his writing, 7rept 
tt€v6ov<s. H. E. Meier, Ueber die Schrift, irepl irevOovs (Halle, 
1840) ; F. Kayser, He Crantor e Academico (Heidelberg, 1841). 

The Older Academy took in general the Laws of Plato 
as its point of view. It pushed the theory of Ideas aside 



ARISTOTLE 227 

to make way for the number theory. Thus Speusippus on 
his side ascribed to numbers a reality that is supersensible 
and separated from the objects of sense, — the same which 
Plato had given to the Ideas. Similarly Philip of Opus in 
the Upinomis declared that the highest knowledge upon 
which the state in the Laws must be built is mathemat- 
ics and astronomy. For these sciences teach men eternal 
proportions, according to which God has ordered the world 
and by which he is leading it to a true piety. Besides this 
mathematical theology Speusippus, accommodating himself 
to the spirit of his school, recognized to a greater degree 
than Plato the worth of empirical science. He dilated 
upon an aLa6r)(ri<; i7rL<TTr)/uLovi/aj, which participates in con- 
ceptual truth. 1 But he had no explanatory theory of this, 
rather only a collection of facts arranged logically as he pre- 
sented them in his compendium {pfioia ovo/nara) which was 
manifestly intended for the use of the school. Xenocrates 
divided philosophy into dialectics, ethics and physics as a 
basis for instruction. 2 He held firmly to the theory of 
Ideas, but recognized that mathematical determinations had, 
in contrast to the sense world, an independent reality similar 
to that of the Ideas. He distinguished, accordingly, three 3 
realms of that which can be known : the supersensible, the 
mathematically determined forms of the world-all, and the 
sense objects. To these objects there corresponds, first, the 
iTTLo-rrinri, including dialectics and pure mathematics; 
secondly, the Sofa, which as an astronomical theory is given 
both an empirical and a mathematical basis ; thirdly, the 
atadrjo-is, which is not false, but exposed to all sorts of 
delusions. 

The Platonists seem to have thought that the chief 
task of their metaphysics was the teleological construction 
of a graded series of mediatory principles between the 

1 Sext. Emp., VII. 145. 2 Ibid., 16. 3 Ibid., 147. 



228 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

supersensible and the sensible. In the solution of this 
task, however, two opposing tendencies made themselves 
felt, which are connected with the names of Speusippus 
and Xenocrates. If the former abandoned the theory of 
Ideas, it was essentially because he could regard the Per- 
fect and the Good, 1 not as the atria of the more Imper- 
fect, the Sensible, but rather as its highest teleological 
result. He therefore postulated numbers as the dp%r}, 
and unity and plurality as their elements and next in order 
geometrical magnitudes and stereometrical forms, to whose 
fourfold number he added the Pythagorean ether. 2 Be- 
sides this, he found the principle of motion in the world- 
soul (vovs), which he seems to have identified with the 
central fire of the Pythagoreans. The goal of motion is 
the Good, which as the most perfect belongs at the end. 
Xenocrates contrasted with this evolution theory the theory 
of emanation, in that he derived numbers and Ideas from 
unity and indeterminate duality {dopiaros Sua?). Numbers 
are to him identical with the Ideas, according to the 
schema of Plato's dypairra Soy/nara. He also further 
defined the soul as self-moving number. 3 Thus there is 
a descent from the unity of the Good down to the Sensi- 
ble ; and between the world-soul and corporeal things 
exists a completely graduated kingdom of good and bad 
daemons. In this very contrast Plato's pupils showed 
that they were engaged upon the unsolved problems of 
Plato's later metaphysics, in that they desired to develop 
further his teaching on its religious side. The opposition 
between atria and avvalnov, between Idea and space, 
between the perfect and the imperfect, grew entirely to 4 
a religious antithesis of the Good and the Bad. They — 
especially Xenocrates — surrendered the monistic motive 

1 Arist., Met, XL 7, 1072 b, 31. 2 See § 24. 

3 Plato, Procr. an., I. 5 (1012); see Arist., Anal. past., II*. 91 a, 38. 

4 See R. Heinze, Xenocr., p. 15 f. 



ARISTOTLE 229 

in the teaching of their master to fantastic speculations 
which turned particularly upon the cause of evil 1 in the 
world. 

More interesting than the fantastic Pythagorizing by the 
leaders of the school is, on the other hand, the high development 
of mathematics which arose in the Pythagorean-Platonic circles 
at this time, even to the solving of the more difficult problems. 
There was the diorism of Neocleides, the theory of the propor- 
tion in Archytas and Eudoxus, the golden section, the spiral 
line, the doubling of the cube b}^ the application of parabolas and 
hyperbolas (see Cantor, Gesch. der Math., I. 202 f.). Then 
there was the astronomy taught by Hicetas, Ecphantus, and 
Heracleides, concerned with the stationariness of the fixed heaven 
of stars and the turning of the axis of the earth. Herakleides 
thought of Mercurv and Venus as satellites of the sun. See Ideler, 
Abhandl cl BerL Akad. d. Wiss., 1828 and 1830. On the 
other hand, however, there is the fact that those men, who were 
only indirectly related to the school, developed the relationship 
of certain motives of Platonism with other teachings. Thus 
Heracleides still held to the Platonic construction of the ele- 
ments when he advocated the synthesis that Ecphantes sought 
between Atomism and Pythagoreanism (§ 25). Eudoxus like- 
wise conceived the iSecu entirely in the sense of the homoiomerii 
of Anaxagoras. 2 

With such a mathematical corruption of the theory of 
Ideas there was conjoined the lapse into popular moraliz- 
ing on the part of the older Academicians. Only in some 
measure, however, did the energy of their religious spirit 
compensate for this deterioration. As concerns morals, 
the school can hardly be made answerable for the hedo- 
nism of Eudoxus, 3 especially since Heracleides appears 4 to 
have openly antagonized it. The theory of goods, however, 
found in the Philebus 5 was cultivated much more in an ac- 
commodative sense : for Speusippus sought happiness in the 

1 See Arist., especially Met, XIII. 4, 1091 b, 22. 

2 Ibid., I. 9, 991 a, 16, with the commentary of Alexander Aphr. 
(Sclwl. in Arist., 572 b, 15). 

3 Arist. EtTi. Nic, I. 12, 1101 b, 27. 

4 Athen., XII. 512 a. 5 Compare above, § 36. 



230 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

perfect development of natural gifts ; 1 Xenocrates, though 
recognizing fully the value of virtue, nevertheless recog- 
nized external goods as also necessary to the attainment of 
the highest good. He set for the majority of mankind 2 the 
practical <f>p6vr)<ris in place of the liriaTiqixri which falls to 
the lot of the few, and finally, in opposition to the Stoics, 
described 3 virtue, health, pleasure, and wealth as the various 
goods, evaluating them in that order. 

It is especially noteworthy that according to all that we 
know the social-ethical character and the political tendency 
of the Platonic morals were not further fostered among 
his pupils. Rather in the Academy the quest after correct 
rules of living for the individual came more and more into 
the foreground. Nature philosophy still engaged the at- 
tention of theorists, as can be seen in Crantor's commen- 
tary to the Timceus. Ethical researches, however, took on 
the individualistic aspect of the period. Polemo taught 
that virtue, which is the essential condition of happiness, 
completely gives satisfactory happiness (avrdp/cTj 77-^0? 
evhaiixovLav) only in connection with the goods of the body 
and life. Virtue cannot be practised in scientific research, 
but in action. 4 Scarcely a step was necessary from such 
views to those of the Stoa. 

39. Beneath these different efforts of the Older Academy 
would obviously lie a fundamental tendency to adjust Plato's 
idealism to the practical interests of Greek society and of 
the empirical sciences. But dependence upon Pythagorean- 
ism on the one hand and on the other a general lack of 
philosophical originality always stunted all these under- 
takings. In the mean time the problem was solved by 
him who had brought with him into the Platonic theory 

1 Clemens, Strom. ,11. 21 (500). Compare concerning Polemo, Cicero, 
Acad., II. 42, 131. 

2 Clemens, Strom., II. 5 (441). 

3 Sext. Emp. Adv. math., XI. 51 f. 4 Diog. Laert., IV. 18. 



ARISTOTLE 231 

an inborn predilection for medicine and the science of 
nature. This perfecter of Greek philosophy was Aristotle 
(384-322). 

Fr. Biese, Die Philos. des Aristoteles (2 vols., Berlin, 1835- 
42) ; A. Rosmini-Serbati, Aristote esposto ed esaminato (Torino, 
1858) ; G. H. Lewes, Aristotle, A Chapter from the History of 
the Science (Lond. 1864; German, Leipzig, 1865) ; G. Grote, 
Aristotle (incomplete, but published by Bain and Robertson, 2 
vols., London, 1872) ; E. Wallace, Outlines of the Philosophy 
of Aristotle (Oxford, 1883). 

The home of Aristotle was Stagira, 1 a city in the 
neighborhood of Athos, on that Thracian peninsula which 
had been colonized 2 chiefly from Chalcis. He came from 
an old family of physicians. His father, Nicomachus, was 
body-physician and a close personal friend of the king, 
Amyntas, of Macedon. Detailed reports about the youth 
and education of the philosopher are wanting. His edu- 
cation was in the charge of his guardian, Proxenus of 
Atarneus, after the death of both his parents. He was 
only eighteen years old when he entered the Academy in 
367, and his connection with- it was uninterrupted until 
Plato's death, so far as we know. He won a prominent 
place in it very quickly, grew early from the position of a 
pupil to that of a teacher in the band, was the champion 
literary spirit of the school through his brilliant writings 
which at once made him famous, and in public lectures 
concerning the art of speaking, antagonized Isocrates, to 
whose anti-scientific rhetoric the Platonic school had never 
been reconciled. 3 

Concerning the life of Aristotle, see J. C. Buhle, Vita Arist. 
per annos digesta, in the Bipontine edition of the works, 1. 80 f. ; 

i Also Stageiros. 

* Aristotle disposed in his will (Diog. Laert., V. 14) of a piece of prop- 
erty in Chalcis, which he perhaps inherited from his mother, Phaestias. 

3 In spite of the advances Plato showed to him in the Phcedrus as 
always preferable to Lysias. 



232 HISTORY OE ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

A. Stahr, Aristotelia, Part I., on the life of Aristotle (Halle, 
1830). Of the ancient biographies of the philosopher, the more 
valuable, those of the older Peripatetics, are lost, and only a 
few of the later remain. 

It is uncertain whether Aristotle grew up in Stagira or in 
Pella, the residence of the Macedonian kings. It is as little 
determinable when his father died, and where he himself lived 
under the tutelage of Proxenus, — in Stagira or Atarneus. 1 
We are also entirely restricted to the following suppositions as 
to his educational training : it is scarcely to be doubted that, 
according to the family tradition, as the son of the Macedonian 
court physician, he was destined by his famil}- for medicine and 
received a training for it ; in the intimate relationship existing 
between scientific medicine, in which Hippocrates was the 
leading spirit, and the Democritan studies of nature, it ma} T be 
supposed that these were the first elements in the early educa- 
tion of our philosopher. At am T rate, he grew up in this atmos- 
phere of the science of medicine in northern Greece, and he 
owed to it his respect for the results of experience, his keen 
perception of fact, and his carefulness as to details in investi- 
gation, which contrast him with the Attic philosophers. On 
the other hand, it must be said that one must not magnify too 
much the reach of knowledge that his seventeen years in the 
Academy brought to him. It was certainly later that Aristotle 
got his immense scientific erudition, — in part, to be sure, during 
his attachment to the Acadenry, but chiefly during his stay in 
Atarneus, Mitylene, and Stagira before he began to teach. It 
is possible that Aristotle remained true to this scientific incli- 
nation while he was in the Academy, and that he was in part re- 
sponsible for gradually causing more attention to be paid to those 
matters (§ 37). At first, however, the spirit of the Platonic 
school must have turned him in other directions, and what we 
know of his activity in the twent}' 3^ears of his study, of the 
form and contents of his writings of that time, the rhetorical 
lectures, etc. , do not allow us to suppose that such inclinations 
predominated in him. 

The malicious school gossip which was circulated in later 
time about the relations between Aristotle and his great teacher 
should be passed over with a deserved silence. See particulars 
in Zeller, III 3 . 8 f. If one holds himself to that which is safely 
testified to, especially in the writings of Aristotle, one finds a 
simple human relationship. The pupil looked upon his teacher 

1 The later references to Atarneus can be explained by the fact that 
Hermeias was for a long time an auditor of Plato. 



MATERIALISM AND IDEALISM 233 

with great reverence. 1 But the more mature he became, the 
more independently did he pass judgment upon Plato's philo- 
sophical positions. He recognized with accurate glance their es- 
sential defects, and he did not conceal his doubts, if his aged 
master directed his theory upon unfortunate lines. Never- 
theless he remained a member of the fraternit} r with his own 
independent circle of activity, and he separated from the school 
only at the moment when after his master's death perversit}^ 
was exalted to principle in the choice of an insignificant head 
of the school. Nothing makes against the conclusion that in 
these difficult relations Aristotle avoided both extremes, with 
that worthy tact that alwaj'S characterized his actions. 

See below concerning the writings of this period. That his 
relation to Isocrates was somewhat strained, we see on the one 
hand from Cicero's reports (l)e oral., III. 35, 141 ; Orat., 19, 
62 ; compare Quint., III. 114), and on the other from the 
shameful pamphlet which a pupil of the orator published against 
the philosopher. Aristotle showed here also his noble self- 
control, when he later in the Rhetoric did not hesitate to give 
examples from Isocrates. 

After Plato's death Aristotle in company with Xenoc- 
rates betook himself to Hermeias, the ruler of Atarneus and 
Assus, and a true friend to Aristotle. Aristotle married 
his relative, Pythias, later after the tyrant had met an un- 
happy end, the victim of Persian treachery. Previously 
he seems to have migrated for a time to Mytilene, and 
perhaps also for a short time to Athens. 2 In 343 he 
obeyed the summons of Philip of Macedon to undertake 
the education of the then thirteen-year-old Alexander. 
Although we are entirely without information concerning 
what kind of education this was, yet the entire later life 
of Alexander bore the best witness of its effect. Also 
later the philosopher remained in the best of relations with 
his great pupil, although the treatment of the nephew of 
Aristotle, Callisthenes, by the king may have brought a 
temporary estrangement. 

1 Compare the simple beautiful verses of Aristotle from the elegy 
to Eudemus : Olympiod. in Gorg., 16G. 

2 See Th. Bergk, Rhein. Mus., XXXVII. 359 f. 



234 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

The regular instruction of the young prince ceased, 
at all events, when he was entrusted by his father, after 
340, with administrative and military duties. The relation 
of the philosopher was therefore more independent of the 
Macedonian court, and the next years he was engaged for 
the most part in scientific work in his native city, in inti- 
mate companionship with his somewhat younger friend, 
Theophrastus, who became a real support to him in the 
following time. For when Alexander entered upon his 
campaign in Asia and Aristotle saw himself entirely free 
of immediate further obligation to him, he went with his 
friend to Athens and founded his own school there. This 
school, in the universality of its scientific interest, in the 
orderliness of its methods of study, and in its systematic 
arrangements for joint inquiry, very soon rose above the 
Academy, and became the pattern of all the later societies 
of scholars of antiquity. Its place was the Lyceum, a 
gymnasium consecrated to the Lycian Apollo, from whose 
shady walks * the school got the name of Peripatetic. 

Twelve years (335-323) Aristotle administered this 
school in ceaseless activity. When, however, after the 
death of Alexander, the Athenians began to rise up against 
the Macedonian rule in Greece, the position of the philoso- 
pher became dangerous, standing as he did in such close 
connections with the royal house. He betook himself to 
Chalcis, and in the following year a disease of the stomach 
cut short his active and honorable career. 

Concerning Hermeias 2 of Atarneus, see A. Bockh, Kleine 
Schrift, VI. 185 ff. ; P. C. Engelbrecht, Ueber die Beziehimgenzu 
Alexander (Eisleben, 1845) ; Rob. Geier (Halle, 1848 and 1856) ; 
M. Carriere (Westermann, Monatsh., 1865). Aristotle owed to 

1 Probably from the custom of lecturing part of the time ambulando. 
See Zeller, IIP. 29 f. 

2 In memory of this friend, Aristotle dedicated his hymn upon virtue : 
Diog. Laert., V. 7. 



ARISTOTLE 235 

/lis relations with different courts and to his own easy circum- 
stances the abundance of the scientific expedients which among 
other things made his extensive collections possible. The 
reports of the ancients concerning the greatness of the sums 
placed at his disposal are obviously somewhat overestimated. 
One cannot doubt, on the whole, from his court relationships, 
the support which he found for his work. 

Concerning the relations of the philosopher and his great 
pupil, gossip has circulated widely, just because there has been 
wanting any trustworthy information about it. If the friend- 
ship in later years was actually somewhat cooler (as Plutarch 
also reports, Alexander, 8), } T etitwas entire foolishness and slan- 
der on the part of later opponents to charge Aristotle with a share 
in the supposed poisoning of the king (see Zeller, III 3 . 36 f.). 
The favorable relations of the philosopher to the Macedonian 
court were most clearly confirmed by the events after the death 
of the king. Doubtful as the single statements here again may 
be, it is certain that the philosopher left his circle of activity at 
Athens in order to avoid a political danger. How great it had 
become can no longer be determined ; for the reports concern- 
ing the charges of impiety, 1 concerning his defence and the 
excuse for his escape in the expression that he wished to spare 
the Athenians a second crime against philosophy, — all this 
smacks, especially in its details, 2 strongly of an attempt to make 
Aristotle's end as nearly as possible like that of Socrates. 

To every depreciation that the character of Aristotle has 
suffered, his system of science stands as the best contradic- 
tion. It is a creation of such magnificent proportions and 
of such construction that it can have been only the work 
of a life filled with the pure love of truth, and even then it is 
almost beyond our comprehension. For the Aristotelian 
philosophy includes the entire range of knowledge of that 
time in such a way that it comprehends all the lines of eaiv 
lier development at the same time that it considerably elab- 
orates the most of these lines. It turns upon all territories 
an equal interest and an equal intellectual appreciation. 

i See E. Heitz in O. Miiller, Lit. Gesch., IP. 253 f. 

2 Compare E. Zeller in Hermes, 1876 ; II. Usener, Die Organisation 
der wissenschaftlichen Arbeit bei den Alten : Preuss. Jahrb., LIII. 1 f. 
(1884). 



236 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

Aristotle met the demands of the history of science more 
completely than Plato. Even in his Ethics the purely theo- 
retic and not the practical interest is fundamental. He is the 
scientific spirit /car i^oxnv. In him the process of the in- 
dependence of the spirit of learning completes itself. He 
is, in the wonderful many-sidedness of his activity, the em- 
bodiment of Greek science, and he has for that reason 
remained "the philosopher" for two thousand years. 

Furthermore he became " the philosopher," not as an isolated 
thinker, but as the head of his school. The most striking char- 
acteristic of his intellectual personalit}' is the administrative 
ability with which he divided his material, separated and formu- 
lated his problems, ordered and co-ordinated the entire scientific 
work. This methodizing of scientific activity is his greatest 
performance. To this end the beginnings already made in the 
earlier schools, especially in that of Democritus, might well have 
been of service. But the universal sketch of a system of science 
in the exact statement of methods such as Aristotle gave, first 
brings these earlier attempts to their complete fruition. His 
conduct of the Lyceum can be looked upon not only as a care- 
fully arranged and methodically progressive instruction, but also, 
above all, it must especially be viewed as an impulsion to inde- 
pendent scientific research and organized work. 1 

The great number of facts and their orderly arrangement are 
only to be explained through the combined efforts of man}' forces 
guided and schooled by a common principle. All this appeared 
and was developed in the Aristotelian writings. The activity 
of the school, which is itself a work of the master, forms an in- 
tegral constituent of his great life-work and his works. 

The collections of writings transmitted under the name 
of Aristotle do not give even an approximately complete 
picture of the immense literary activity of the man. They 
apparently include, however, with relatively few exceptions, 
just that part of his work upon which his philosophical 
significance rests, viz., Ms scientific writings. 

1 Compare E. Zeller in Hermes, 1876 ; H. Usener, Die Organisation 
der wissenscliaftlichen Arbeit bei den Alten: Preuss, Jahrb., LIII. If. 
(1884). 



ARISTOTLE 237 

The preserved remainder of the Aristotelian writings forms 
still a stately pile, even after the genuine have been separated 
from the doubtful and spurious. But in extent it is manifestly 
only a smaller part of that which came forth from the literary 
workshop of the philosopher. From the two lists of his writings 
that antiquity has preserved (published in the Berlin edition, V. 
1463 f.) the one of Diogenes Laertius (V. 22 f.), which was 
changed by the anonymous Megarian, probably by Hesychius, 
is supposably based upon a report of the Peripatetic Hermippus 
(about 200 b. a), concerning the Aristotelian collection in the 
Alexandrian library. The other list originated with the Peripa- 
tetic, Ptolemaeus, in the second century a. d., and was preserved 
partly by Arabic writers (Zeller, III 3 . 54). 

The traditional collection appears essentially to have come 
from the published Aristotelian writings, which somewhere in 
the middle of the first century b. c. were prepared by Andro- 
nicus of Rhodes with the co-operation of the grammarian 
Tyrannion. In modern time it was printed first in a Latin 
translation in 1489, together with the commentaries of Averroes, 
and in a Greek translation in Venice in 1495 ff. Of the later 
editions may be mentioned the Bipontine, by Biehle (5 vols., 
incompleted, Biponti et Arge?itorati, 1791 f.) ; that of the Berlin 
Academy (text recension by Imm. Becker, annotations by 
Brandis, fragments by V. Rose, index by Bonitz 5 vols., Berlin, 
1831-70) ; the Didot edition by Diibner, Biissemaker, and 
Heitz (5 vols., Paris, 1848-74) ; stereotype edition of Tauchnitz 
(Leipzig, 1843). Concerning a special edition of his single 
works, see Ueberweg, I 7 . 186 f. German translations are in 
different collections, particularly in J. v. Kirchmann's Philos. 
Bibliothek. 

These preserved writings offer problems for solution which 
differ from those in the Platonic writings, but are no less diffi- 
cult. Indeed, there is but little agreement among the authori- 
ties as to the questions involved. The discussion has been 
only a little concerned with the chronology of single works ; it 
has had more concern with the very doubtful genuineness of 
many of them ; it has found its greatest concern with the liter- 
ary character, the origin and purpose of the single writings and 
of the collection. 

J. G. Biihle, De librorum Aristotelis distributione in exoteri- 
cos et acroamaticos (Bipontine ed., I. 105 f.) ; Titze, De Arist. 
operum serie et distinctione (Leipzig, 1826) ; Ch. Brandis 
(Rhein. Mus., 1827) ; A. Stahr, Aristotelia, Part II., Die 
SchicJcsale der Arist. Schriften (Leipzig, 1832); L. Spengel, 
Abhandl. der bair. Akad. der Wiss., 1837 f. ; V. Rose, De Arist. 



238 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

librorum ordine et auctoritate (Berlin, 1854) ; H. Bonitz, Arist. 
Studien (Vienna, 1862 f.) ; Jac. Bernays, Die Dialoge des 
Arist. (Berlin, 1863) ; E. lleitz, Die verlorenen Schriften des 
Arist. (Leipzig, 1865) ; the same in O. Miiller's Litteratur 
Geschich., II 2 . 256 f . ; F. Vahlen, Arist. Aufsatze (Vienna, 
1870 f.) ; R. Shute (Oxford, 1888). 

The writings 1 of Aristotle are divided with reference to 
their literary character into three classes : — 

(1) The Works published by Aristotle himself, and in- 
tended for a wider circle of readers. 

Of these no single work is complete, and only frag- 
ments are extant. They originated in the main during 
Aristotle's attendance at the Academy, and showed strongly 
the influence, even in .their titles, of the Platonic philosophy. 
They were, on the whole, dialogues, and if they did not also 
possess the artistic fancy with which Plato managed this 
form, they are striking, nevertheless, in their fresh in- 
tuitions, happy inventions, florid diction, as well as in the 
richness of their thought. 

These eKSeSo/xeW Xoyoi were counted by Aristotle, in his occa- 
sional mention of them in his didactic writings, as belonging 
to the general class of e^wTcptKol Aoyot. By this class he seems 
to have understood the more popular treatment of scientific 
questions in antithesis to the methodical and scholastic cultiva- 
tion of science. The latter, which centres in the lectures of the 
head of the school, appeared later as the acroamatic writings. 
The opposition of the exoteric and the acroamatic teaching does 
not, then, necessarily signify in itself a difference in content of 
doctrine, but only a difference in form of presentation. There 
is no word about a secret teaching. It may, however, be ac- 
cepted as true that the exoteric writings originated when he was 
in the Academy, and the acroamatic, when he was an indepen- 
dent teacher ; and from this fact even essential differences are 
easily explained. See Zeller, III 3 . 112 f. ; H. Diels, Sitziingsber. 
der Berl. Akad., 1883 ; H. Susemihl, Jahrbuclif. Phttol., 1884. 

Aristotle owed his literary fame in antiquity to his published 

1 Excepting the personal writings like the verses, the testament (Diog. 
Laert., V. 13 f.), and the letters, of which scarcely anything genuine is 
preserved. 



ARISTOTLE 239 

writings, and certainly in all justice if we may judge from the 
few preserved specimens. 1 For if, on account of the "golden 
flow " of his words, he is classed with Democritus and Plato as 
a model, 2 nevertheless this praise cannot be applied to the writ- 
ings that have been preserved. The " golden flow " is so seldom 
in these writings that it is more supposable that they are ex- 
cerpts from his dialogues that were made either by Aristotle 
himself or by some of his pupils. 8 

The composition of the Aristotelian dialogues is said to have 
been distinguished from the Platonic by a less vivid treatment 
of the dramatic setting, and also by the circumstance that the 
Stagirite himself gave the leading word. In content they were 
affiliated in part closely to the Platonic dialogues. Thus, the 
Eudemus especially appears to have been a detailed copy of the 

Phcedo. Other titles like wepl $LK(iLO<TVVr]<;, TpvWos rj wepl p'qropLKYJs, 

crocpLo-Tyjs, ttoXltlkos, ipayriKos, (jvpacofriov^ Mcve^ei/o? remind us imme- 
diately of the works of Plato and his school. Others refer directly 
to popular philosophical' discussions, like the three books 7rept 
7toi?7tw, irep\ ttXovtov, irzpX ev^rj^, irepl evyevuas, 7repi f)$ovf}s, Trepl 

7raiSeta?, 7repi /3acnA.€ias. 4 The genuineness of all of these has not 
been established, nor is it certain that all were in the form of 
the dialogue. It is very improbable that the TlpoTpen-TLKos was 
in this form (R. Hirzel, in Hermes, X. 61 f.). The most signifi- 
cant, and, as it appears, those most independent of the Platonic 
influence among these exoteric writings, are the three books of 
the dialogue irepl <£iA.oo-oc/>ius. (See By water, in Jour, of Philol., 
1877, 64 f.) 

(2) The Compilations; partly critical excerpts from 
scientific works (vTro/uLvrjfiara), partly collections of zoologi- 
cal, literary-historical, and antiquarian data which Aristotle, 
probably with the help of his pupils, used as material for 
scientific research and theory. 

These also have unfortunately been lost except a very 
few fragments, although it appears that at least a portion 
of them had been published either by Aristotle himself or 
by his pupils. 

1 See Cicero, De nat. deor., II. 37, 95. 

2 See place in Zeller, III 3 . Ill, 1. 

8 See Fr. Blass, Alt. Beredtsamkeit, 427 note; also Rhein. Mus. 
1875. 

4 Dedicated to Alexander, as also 7repi dnoiKiatv. 



240 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

To these last belong the notes of the philosopher concerning 
the later lectures of Plato : 7rept rayaOov and 7rept twv ei8u>i/. Com- 
pare Ch. Brand is, De perditis Aristotelis de bono et ideis libris 
(Bonn, 1823). There are also reports of some extracts from 
the Laws, the Republic, and the Timoeus, the critical notes about 
Alcmseon, the Pythagoreans, — especially about Archytas, — 
Speusippus, and Xenocrates. Also the writings De Melisso 
Xenophone Gorgia arose from a like need in the Peripatetic 
school. The fruits of this comprehensive study of the history 
of philosophy appear in the numerous historical relations which 
the Aristotelian didactic writings generally set up in entering 
upon the treatment of problems. The irpofiXi) ^ara serve similar 
purposes of instruction and of research, although their present 
form is a later conception of the school. Compare C. Prantl, 
Abhand. der Milnchn. Akad., VI. 341 f. The same holds 
good for all the definitions and diaereses which antiquity then 
possessed. 

In the magnificent collections which Aristotle planned L . 
the Lyceum must first be mentioned the dvaro/xuu, the descrip- 
tive basis for zoology, furnished, it seems, with illustrations. 
Then there is the collection of the rhetorical theories under the 

title re^vcov avvayioyrj, and of the rhetorical models ivOv/xyj^ara 

prjropiKa ; besides the collection relating to the history of trage- 
dies and comedies, and the questions raised about the different 
poets, Homer, Hesiod, Archilochus, Euripides, and others ; fi- 
nally, the historical miscellanies: the iroXiruaL, reports concerning 
one hundred fifty-eight Greek state constitutions, vo^a fiap/3a- 
ptK(x, StKatco/xara ru>v 7r6Xeojv, and besides ^OXvjXTTiovlKat, 'VvOlovIkoli, 
7repl evprjfiOLTcov, 7rept Oav/xaatojv aKova-fxaruiv, 7rapot/xiat, etc. 

Concerning the character of these scientific materials, which 
until the present time were apparently entirely lost, some years 
ago a very surprising disclosure was made, partly by the fortunate 
discovery of a most important piece, the TIoAn-eia tow AQyivoiw 
(published by G. Kaibel and U. v. Wilamowitz-Mollendorf, 
Berlin, 1892 ; translated into German by G. Kaibel and A. 
Kiessling, Strassburg, 1891); the literature on it, especially on 
its genuineness, has, as may be expected, quickly appeared ; a 
complete review can be found in the English edition of J. E. 
Sandys (Lond., 1893, p. lxvii). To be sure, the beginning and 
end are wanting, but by far the greatest part is preserved in 
nearly a complete continuity. It appears not as a dry collection 
of facts, but as a ripe historical work clearly and perfectly devel- 
oped. The greatness of conception, the practical simplicit} 7 
of representation, the accuracy of judgment make it appear 
a worthy writing of the master in whose last years its composi- 



ARISTOTLE 241 

tion must have occurred. Should this history of the Athenian 
constitution be the work of one of his pupils, then would it 
indeed be a new honor for the Lyceum. 

Although many of those collections that are attributed to 
Aristotle may have come from his pupils, or perhaps even 
later, and although by no means can all those titles refer to 
writings of the philosopher himself, they nevertheless give proof 
of the versatility and cyclopedic character of the scientific work 
of the school. Upon all territories, both historical and scien- 
tific, he gave the fruitful impulse to seek out the entire existing 
material and to place it in order, and thus to make it available 
for scientific treatment. The Lyceum, in its storing of the 
treasures of erudition, was, to a higher degree than the Academy, 
the centre of culture of Greece. 

(3) The Didactic Writings originating in the school and 
intended for its use. It is these only that have been pre- 
served, and they together make what is known as the col-, 
lection of Aristotle's works. They are not complete, how- 
ever, and in many cases probably not in the original form. 
They nevertheless exhibit in the highest degree some 
peculiar characteristics. A sharply impressed, delicately 
worked out, and consistently developed terminology is com- 
mon to them. On the other hand, complete absence of 
grace and of aesthetic motive of presentation is to be 
noted. The scheme of investigation is, on the whole, the 
same: the precise formulation of the problem, the criticism 
of opinions which are submitted concerning the problem, 
the careful discussion of the single points of view as they 
appear, the comprehensive marshalling of the facts, and the 
striving for a clear and conclusive result. In all these 
respects the Aristotelian writings make a complete antithe- 
sis to the Platonic ; the difference being that between sci- 
ence and aesthetics. The Aristotelian writings afford 
different rnd therefore less attractive enjoyment. It must 
not be forgotten that the excellences of the Aristotelian 
works are qualified in many striking ways. The unequal 
development, wherein many parts give the impression of 

10 



242 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

being masterly and final and others of being hasty and 
sketchy ; the disorder which predominates in the principal 
writings of the transmitted series of books ; the — in part 
verbal — repetitions of even lengthy sections ; the unful- 
filled promises, — all these facts forbid the belief that the 
writings in their present form were intended by Aristotle 
for publication ; while, on the other hand, in point of form 
and content the interconnection of the works is evident, and 
is emphasized by numerous cross references that are often 
reciprocal. 

All these characteristics are only explicable and are 
also fully conceivable upon the hypothesis that Aristotle 
entertained the purpose of developing into text-books the 
written notes that he had made the basis of his lectures. 
These text-books would have been manuals of instruction 
for the Lyceum, and would have been given into the hands 
of his pupils. In addition it is supposable that Aristotle 
undertook this work in direct connection with his lectures, 
and about the same time with reference to the sciences 
treated by him. He probably pursued this work during 
the twelve years of his leadership. Before, however, this 
giant work came to an end, death had seized him. Except- 
ing the smaller works, which perhaps were waiting to be 
included in his larger works, only parts of the Logic — the 
Topics in particular — appear to have been completed. It 
may also be accepted that the gaps which thus remained 
were filled in part by the most intimate pupils, probably 
on the basis of their notes of the Aristotelian lectures. 
These interpolations were made by different pupils differ- 
ently. Thus in the school many redactions of the text- 
books were handed on, and among such redactions many 
later productions of the school slipped in. This went on 
until Andronicus of Rhodes published the first edition 
(60-50 b. c.), which lies at the basis of the present 
documents. 



AKISTOTLE 243 

The close relationship between the preserved writings of 
Aristotle and his actual teaching is evident, even if we take no 
account of such direct evidence as his address to his auditors at 
the conclusion of the Topics. The question is only as to a 
clearer determination of the relationship, and it would appear as 
if all the opinions expressed about the relationship may be justi- 
fied to a certain extent. Undoubtedly the notes of the philoso- 
pher form the body of the discourses ; — not only such sketches 
as he might use for his lectures, but on the other hand also such 
as he had made ready, for the text-book. 1 The latter set forth 
in a wonderful manner the clearness and ripeness of the Aris- 
totelian spirit. Other facts, especially the different redactions of 
the same book, hardly allow another interpretation than that of 
Scaliger, that interpolations from the writings of the auditors 
have taken place. In accordance with this theory the presence 
of such parts or of entire writings which cannot in form or con- 
tent be ascribed to Aristotle, is most simply explained. 

A very venturesome but in itself a not incredible theory was 
spread in antiquity concerning the fate of the Aristotelian manu- 
scripts. 2 They were supposed to have fallen with the property 
of Theophrastus to his pupil, Neleus of Scepsis in Troas, and 
to have been hidden in a cellar by his descendants out of fear 
of the mania for collecting of the kings of Pergamus. After- 
wards they were found and purchased in a much damaged state 
by the Peripatetic Apellicon of Teos and removed to Athens. 
When Sulla conquered that city, the writings fell into his hands 
and were published at Rome by the grammarian Tyrannion, 
and finally by Andronicus of Rhodes. This story does not 
explain, of course, the remarkable condition of the transmitted 
documents. It is indubitably proved in the case of single writ- 
ings — as is obvious — that the Peripatetic school possessed the 
scientifically most important writings of its founder from the 
beginning. On the other hand, it is nevertheless not improb- 
able that the rediscovery of the original manuscripts afforded 

1 In this fact and in the smaller importance of the copies by his 
auditors consists the chief difference between the character of the corpus 
Aristotelicum and the somewhat analogous form in which a series of 
Hegel's lectures is presented to us. Hegel had not begun a remodelling 
of his Hefte for text-books, while, on the other hand, we owe the most 
valuable of the preserved works of Aristotle to the fact that he had 
begun such a remodelling. 

2 Plutarch, Sulla, 26 ; Strnb , XIII. 1, 54 ; compare E. Essen, Der 
Keller zu Skepsis (Stargard, 1886). 



244 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

Andronicus not only the occasion but also, as far as the manu- 
scripts reached, the distinct ground for his standard edition in 
c®ntrast to the school tradition. 

Since the didactic writings form internally a perfectly con- 
sistent whole, the question about the order of their origination 
is comparatively unimportant. The question is, moreover, en- 
tirely purposeless, since it may be accepted that work upon the 
writings was continuously and simultaneously carried on in con- 
nection with the lectures repeatedly given during the twelve 
years of his activity as a teacher. It nevertheless appears that 
the Logic was the first to be conceived, and relatively to the 
others was brought more nearly to completion. 

Compare with the following Zeller, III 3 . 67-109. 

The preserved didactic writings are most simply ar- 
ranged in the following groups : — 

(a) The Treatises on Logic and Rhetoric — the Cate- 
gories, the very doubtful treatise On the Proposition, the 
Analytics, and the Topics, including the last and compara- 
tively independent book Concerning the Fallacies ; and the 
Rhetoric. 

The grouping of the logical works, in the customary series, 
under tie name opyavov, occurred first in the Byzantine period. 
A special edition is published by Th. Waitz (2 vols., Leip., 
1844-46). The genuineness of the Karayoptai is doubted, espe- 
cially by Prantl (Gesch. d. Log., I. 207 f.). The conclusion of 
these writings, i. e., concerning post-predicaments, can at all 
events not be ascribed to Aristotle, and the remainder of the book 
appears to be based upon his sketch only in essentials. ITept 
kpfjiriv€ias is subject to stronger suspicions to which even as earlj 7 
a writer as Andronicus gave expression. The Analytics is a 
masterly logical groundwork, which develops the theory of the 
conclusion and of proof in two parts (avaXvTtKa irporepa and 
vo-repa), each consisting of two books, — the second part being 
not so completely rounded out as the first. Joined to it, as the 
most complete of all the works, is the Topics, which treats of 
the method of probabilit}^. In connection with it, as its ninth 
book (Waitz), there is -n-epl o-o^mttlkwv kkiyx^v. There are pre- 
served besides a great number of titles of logical-epistemological 
theoretical discussions, of which the Aristotelian authorship is 

more or less doubtful : 7repi eiScov kou yeiw, 7repi 7W avTLKeL/xeviov, 
ircpl Kara^xxcreoj?, crvXXoyicrfJLOi, optaTLKa, irepl rov 7rpos ri, 7repl $6£r)<5, 
Trepl i7na-Tr)[ir)s, etc. 



ARISTOTLE 245 

The first two books of the Rhetoric may be regarded as gen- 
uine in spite of some difficulties (Spengel in Abh. der Munch. 
Akad., VI.). The third is doubtful. The so-called Rhetoric 
to Alexander is, on the contrary, generally regarded as spuri- 
ous, but it probably belongs to the Peripatetic school. The 
Rhetoric of Theodectes is also mentioned, which was published 
during the life of Aristotle. This work embodied the teachings 
of the philosopher, and was probably based upon his lectures. 

(5) The Writings on Theoretic Philosophy — the Meta- 
physics, which in Aristotelian terminology was called " first 
philosophy" or "theology;" besides, the book on mathe- 
matics being lost, the Physics, the History of Animals, the 
Psychology, and the three minor treatises belonging to 
these three. 

The Metaphysics (special edition by Brandis, Berlin, 1823 ; 
Schwegler, with translation and commentar}-, Tubingen, 1847- 
48 ; Bonitz, Bonn, 1848-49 ; translated into German, Berlin, 
1890 ; Greek edition by W". Christ, Leipzig, 1886) has pre- 
served its traditional name for the philosophic science of prin- 
ciples, because of its place in the ancient collection (/xera to, 

cjivcrLKa). 

From the fourteen preserved books the second (a Zkarrov) is 
certainly to be set apart as a school compilation of many parts 
welded together. Among the other thirteen books the first, 
second, third, fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth books (numbered 
according to the Berlin edition) form a connected but not a com- 
pleted, and also not a finally edited investigation, to which after 
a break the ninth book also belongs. The fourth book, which 
was cited b}' Aristotle himself, under the title -n-epl tov -n-oo-ax^, 
is a school manual containing a discussion of terminolog}^. 
The first eight chapters of the tenth and the first half of the 
eleventh book are either an Aristotelian sketch or a school- 
extract from the chief investigation. The second half of the 
eleventh book is an outline of the teaching of the Godhead. 
The conclusion of the tenth book is a compilation from the 
Physics, obviously not by Aristotle. Books twelve and thirteen 
appear to be an older form of the criticism of the Platonic 
Ideas. The preserved collection is so much the more unique, 
since it is the more probable that it was taken in hand soon 
after the death of Aristotle, perhaps by Eudemus. 

From the series of mathematical writings only the discussion 



246 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

7rept dro/xwj/ ypa(ifxQ>v is extant, and its transmitted form is 
probably spurious. 

Of the eight books of lectures on the science of nature, (J>vo-lky) 
d/cpoao-i5, — the modern name would be " philosophy of nature," 
— books five, six, and eight treat irepl Kivrjcreios. The earlier 
books are concerned with universal principles in the explanation 
of nature (jrepl apx&v) ; the seventh book gives one the impres- 
sion of being a preliminary sketch. Astronomy and physics 
proper are included as developments : 7rept ovpavov, 7rept yeveo-ecos 
kolI </>0opa9 fieTewpoXoyiKa. A number of separate treatises are 
lost, the firjxaviKa is spurious, and also the Kepi Koo-fiov. See 
below, § 49. 

The parallel work to the wept ra £wa to-opta, of which book ten 
is presumably not genuine, is the 7rept 4>vtCov, which is lost. On 
the other hand, some restorations of the former are preserved : 
7rept £,(pa)v ixoptwv, 7rept £oW yevecrews, 7rept £wcov iropuaq. 

Among the most mature works belong the three books -n-epl 
i}/vxr)s (published by Barthelemy St. Hilaire, Paris, 1846 ; A. 
Torstrick, Berlin, 1862 ; A. Trendelenburg, 2d ed., Berlin, 1877 ; 
E. Wallace, Cambridge, 1882). With these are collected a 
number of treatises on physiological psychology : -rrepl cuV&jo-ews 
/cat alaOrjTiov ; 7rept ^tvrjfirjs /cat ava(Avrj(reo)s ; 7rept virvov /cat iyprjyopaeois J 
7rept ivvTTViwv and 7rept tt}<s Koff vttvov fxavriKyjs J 7T€pt /la/cpo/^tOT^TOS 
/cat /?pa;(v/?ioT?7T05 ; 7rept £(0179 /cat Oavarov ', 7rcpt avaTrvorjS. The writ- 
ing 7rept 7ri'€VfiaTo<s owes its origin to the Aristotelian school. 

(c) The Writings on Practical and Poetic Philosophy : 
the Ethics (in the Nicomachean and Eudemean versions), 
the Politics, and the Poetics. 

Among the preserved forms of the Ethics, the so-called 'H0t/ca 
MeyaAa is essentially only an extract from both the others, of 
which, moreover, the ten books of the 'H#t/ca Nt/co^d^eta appear 
to be nearest to Aristotle's design. The seven books of the 
'H0t/ca 'Eix^ueia appear to be based on the notes of Eudemus. 
The identity of the Nicomachean Ethics Y.-VIl. and the 
Eudemian IV.-VI. allows room for various interpretations of 
a mutual supplementation of the two redactions. Of smaller 
ethical treatises nothing is preserved. The essay 7repl dperwi/ 
/cat /ca/awi/ is spurious. 

The eight books of the likewise incomplete Politics (published 
by Susemihl, Leipzig, 1870) are problematic as to their preserved 
order. See literature in Zeller, IIP. 672 f. Books seven and 
eight should undoubtedly come directly after book three. The 



ARISTOTLE 247 

transposition of books five and six is still in dispute. The 
Economics is not genuine. 

The fragment -n-epl ttoi^tlkyj^ is preserved, but only in a very 
fragmentary and altered condition (published by Susemihl, 
Leipzig, 1865, and Vahlen, Berlin, 1867; G. Teiehmuller, 
Aristotelische Forschungen, Halle, 1860 and 1869). 

40. The effort to transform the Socratic-Platonic con- 
ceptual philosophy into a theory that will explain the 
phenomenal world was the centre of the Aristotelian 
philosophy. The conviction that the tasks of science can 
be solved only by the Socratic method — the method of 
conceptual knowledge — was taken for granted by Aris- 
totle, and was his reason for reckoning himself in later time 
still within the Platonic circle. The advance, however, 
which he made upon Platonism was based on his insight 
into the insufficiency of the theory of Ideas to explain 
empirical facts. It is true that Plato had in the end very 
emphatically asserted that the Ideas, which at first for 
him meant only permanent Being, were also the atria of 
the world of sense. However, as Aristotle later showed, 
Plato had not been able to harmonize this thought with his 
first conception of the world of Ideas. Aristotle justly found 
the ultimate ground for this inharmony in Plato's funda- 
mental ascription of a self-substantial separate reality to the 
world of Ideas. This transcendence of the Ideas, which es- 
sentially is only a duplication of the empirical world, must 
be annulled. The Ideas must not be conceived as different 
from the objects of experience and as existing separate 
from them. They must be known as the peculiar essence 
of existence, as its determining content. Plato's weakness 
as well as his greatness lay in his theory of two worlds. 
The fundamental thought of Aristotle was that the super- 
sensible world of Ideas and the world of sense are identical. 

The polemic of Aristotle against the theory of Ideas, espe- 
cially in the first, sixth, and twelfth book of the Metaphysics, 
concealed the fact to the earlier criticism that his antagonism 



248 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

was far outweighed by the importance of the r61e assigned in his 
own philosophy to the theory of Ideas ; for his dependence on 
that theory was an accepted fact by him and the circle of his 
pupils, although Aristotle only incidentally alluded to it. The 
polemic was directed solePy against the ^ojpto-^05, the hypostasiz- 
ing of Ideas into a second and higher world. He pointed out 
the difficulties involved therein : that the Ideas make neither 
motion nor knowledge conceivable, and that their relation to 
the world of sense has not been satisfactorily and consistently 
defined. In other respects the Stagirite shared throughout the 
fundamental conceptions of the Attic philosophy : he defined 
the problem of philosophy to be the knowledge of what really 
is, 1 and he asserted that this knowledge is not acquired by per- 
ception, 2 precisely because the things of sense change and are 
destroyed. 3 He likewise characterized the universal, the con- 
cepts, as the content of true knowledge, and accordingly also of 
the truly actual. 4 However, from the beginning Aristotle united 
a genetic theory with his ontology, and he demanded that 
science explain the origin of phenomena from what realty is. 5 
He insisted, therefore, that the Ideas be so understood that 
they, as the true essence of sense objects, make these objects 
conceivable. If Aristotle did not solve his problem perfectly, 
it was due entirely to his continuous dependence on fundamental 
definitions of the Platonic philosophy. 

See Ch. Weisse, De Platonis et Aristotelis in constituendis 
summis philosophic principiis differentia (Leipzig, 1828) ; 
M. Carriere, De Aristotele Platonis amico ejusque doctrinm iusto 
censore (Gottingen, 1837); Th. Waitz, Platon u. Aristoteles 
(Cassel, 1843) ; Fr. Michelis, Be Aristotele Platonis in idearum 
doctrina adversario (Braunsberg, 1864); W. Rosenkrantz, Pie 
platonische Ideenlehre und ihre Bekampfmig durch Aristoteles 
(Mainz, 1869); G. Teichmuller, Studien (1874), p. 226 f. 

Since the essence of things is known by means of class 
concepts, the fundamental problem of Aristotelianism is 
the relationship of the universal to the particular. When 
Aristotle made this fundamental principle of scientific 
thought — recognized by Socrates in inspired intuition — 
an object of separate preliminary investigation, he created 

1 Anal post., II. 19, 100 a, 9. 2 Ibid., I. 31, 87 b, 28. 

3 Met., VI. 15, 1039 b, 27. 

4 Ibid., TT. 4, 999 a, 28; II. 6, 1003 a, 13. 

5 De an., I. 1, 402 b, 16. 



ARISTOTLE 249 

the science of logic. He introduced this science as a uni- 
versal theory of scientific method 1 preliminary to single 
practical investigations. In this self-knowledge of science 
the historical process of emancipation of the intellectual 
life perfects itself into full consciousness. As the " Father 
of Logic," Aristotle represented the maturity of Greek 
scientific development. 

Although Aristotle certainly separated the single branches of 
science and fixed upon their relationship of rank, yet the pre- 
served documents offer no generally complete division. On the 
one hand, he treated the branches pedagogically, proceeding 
from the facts up to their causes, and on the other he inversely 
proceeded from the principles down to the consequences. The 
division in the Acadenry at one time was into logical, physical, 
and ethical researches, 2 at another time into theoretic, practical, 
and poetic science, 3 while in the Peripatetic school 4 the division 
into theoretic and practical science was customaiy. So much 
appears to be certain, viz., that Aristotle introduced the Logic 
(Analytics and Topics) as a universal and formal preparation 
or methodology for all other branches, since he himself does 
not mention it under " theoretic " sciences. 5 

A. Trendelenburg, Elementa logices Aristotelem (3d Ad., 
Berlin, 1876) ; Th. Gumposch, Ueber die Logik u. d. logischen 
Schriften des Arist. (Leipzig, 1839) ; H. Hettner, De logices 
Aristotelicce speculativo principio (Halle, 1843) ; C. Herder, 
Die Methodologie der arist. JPhilos. (Erlangen, 1845) ; C. 
Prantl, Gesch. d. Logik, I. 87 f. (see Abhandl. der bay er. Akad., 
1853) ; F. Kampe, Die Erkenntnisstheorie des Arist. (Leipzig, 
1870) ; R. Eucken, D. Methode der arist. Forschung (1872, 
Berlin) ; R. Biese, D. Erkenntnisslehre des Arist. u. Kant's 
(Berlin, 1877). 

The principle of the Aristotelian logic is the thought 
that just as in natura rerum the universal or conceptually 
defined essence is the cause or ground of definition of the 
particular, so also the ultimate task of an explanatory 

i Met., III. 3, 1005 a, 33. 2 Top., I. 14, 105 b 20. 

3 Met, I. 1025 b, 18. 

4 See Eth. End., I. 1, 1214 a, 10 ; Met., I. 993 b, 20. 

5 Met., V. 1, 1026 a, 18, counts as such only physics, mathematics, 
and theology (metaphysics). 



250 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

science consists in deriving {dirohei^) the single from the 
universal, and thereby in attaining the conceptual necessity 
of the empirically actual. 1 Scientific explanation consists 
in understanding the perceptually known from its causes. 
It is the reproduction by the process of knowledge — in 
the relationship of ground and consequent — of the real 
relation of the universal cause to its particular result. 

However, all knowledge consists 2 only in the union 
of concepts (Xoyos as av/jbifkoKT) of ovofia and prj/na), that is, 
in the premise (irpoTao-L^ or in the judgment (diro^avo-is), 
since either as an affirmative judgment (/cardipao-i^) it ex- 
presses 3 real union or as a negative judgment (a7ro</><zo-t?) 
real separation of the determinations of content that are 
thought in the subject and predicate. So the last task of 
all scientific explanation (eV^o-r^/xT?) is the derivation 
(dirohei^Ls:) of particular judgments from the universal. 
On this account the theory of the conclusion and proof, 
which he himself called the Analytics, formed the centre 
of the Aristotelian logic. 

The Aristotelian Analytic acquired the appearance of an ab- 
stract formal logic through misunderstandings and through the 
misapplied development of it by the School in later times. In 
truth, it was conceived by Aristotle methodologically in the most 
vital relationship to the practical tasks of science ; and therefore 
in the Peripatetic school the logical treatises are rightly called 
" organic." But just for this reason are they ruled throughout 
by a number of epistemological presuppositions concerning that 
which really is and the relationship of thought to Being. The 
highest presupposition, even if not expressly formulated by 
Aristotle, is the identity of the forms of apprehending thought 
with the forms of relationship belonging to actuality. 4 Thus the 
first systematic sketch of logic includes in close union the three 
points of view under which this science was later treated. 
These are the formal, methodological, and epistemological. 

1 Anal, post., I. 2 f. 2 j) e cat ^ 4, 2 a, 6. 

3 Met, III. 7, 1012 a, 4. 

4 See Met., IV. 7, 1017 a, 23; 6oax<os \ey<Tai y Toaax&s to elvat 
(TTjfJiaiveL. 



AKISTOTLE 251 

One can determine the formal difference between Plato and 
Aristotle b}- noting that the point of departure of Plato is the 
concept, of Aristotle the judgment. Aristotle sought truth and 
error only in the union of concepts 1 in so far as such a union 
is asserted or denied. If this emphasizes principally the qualit} r 
of the judgment, yet the s} T l logistic, as the theory of the estab- 
lishment of the judgment, demands a treatment of quantity and 
thus a distinction between general and particular judgments 
(kcl66\ov — iv fAepa). 2 The consideration of judgment from the 
points of view of relation and modality was still distant from 
Aristotle. When he pointed out that the content of judgment 
is the knowledge either of actuality or necessitj' or possibilit}^, 3 
this assertion rests upon that principal point of view in his 
Metaphysics (§ 41), and has nothing to do with modality in its 
modern sense (Kant, Critique d. r. Vernimft, § 9, Kehrb. 92 f.). 
But, finally, all researches which Aristotle instituted for distin- 
guishing judgments are decided by reference to the theory of 
the conclusion, that is, by the question what significance they 
can have in the conclusion. As mediating between the two, he 
treated in a thoroughgoing way the theories of reasoning: 
Anal, prior. , I. 2 f . 

The Aristotelian syllogistic is the search for that which 
can 4 be derived with perfect certainty from given proposi- 
tions. It finds the fundamental form of inference in the 
establishing of the particular proposition through the univer- 
sal, and the subsumption thereunder (inference by subalter- 
nation). To this so-called first figure of the syllogism he 
referred its other two forms (a^fxara), which are character- 
ized 5 by the different logical place of the middle term 
{/juicrov} in both premises (re0evra) , and thus mediate in the 
conclusion {o-vfjarepaafxa) the differing relations of the two 
chief concepts (a/c/oa). So Aristotle conceived that the 
result of the syllogism is always an answer to the question, 
whether at all and to what extent one of these concepts 
is subsumed under the other ; that is, how far the universal 
determination of the latter concept holds for the former. 

1 Be an., III. 6, 430 a, 27. Compare Be interpr., I. 16 a, 12. 
This thought was hinted at in the dialogue of the Sophist, 259 f. 

2 Anal, prior., T. 1, 24 a, 17. 
4 Ibid., 1, 24 b, 19. 5 Ibid., 4-6. 



252 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

The S3 T llogistic includes accordingly a system of rules, by 
which, provided universal propositions are established, particu- 
lars can be derived from them. According to the purpose of the 
philosopher, it would therefore be established how in the perfected 
science all particular knowledge may be derived from universal 
principles and its subject matter be explained. For practice 
a universal schematism of proof was accordingly given, in 
which the tentative efforts of the Sophists for an art of proof 1 
were carried out to their scientific conclusion. For the Aris- 
totelian Analytics with a perfectly conclusive certainty solved 
this definitely circumscribed problem, viz., according to what 
rules propositions follow from given propositions. It is 
therefore conceivable, on the one hand, that this system during 
the entire Middle Ages, when science was directed not to research 
but to proof, passed as the highest philosophical norm, and on 
the other hand that this system in the Renaissance, which was 
filled with a need for new knowledge and sought an ars inveni- 
endi, was set aside in eve^ part as insufficient. Indeed the 
limitations of the system of Aristotle, like its greatness, consisted 
in its attention to the entire process of inference from the point 
of view of the subsumptive relations between concepts. It 
analyzed these relations, moreover, with absolute completeness. 
See Ueberweg, System der Logik, § 100 f. 

Proof and inference, which make up the form of the 
completed science, presuppose ultimate premises, which are 
not derived from more universal propositions but are imme- 
diately certain (a/xeo-a). 2 These [apyai diroSec^eco^) are, 3 
in part the axioms that rule all knowledge, among which 
are the law of contradiction and that of the excluded 
middle ; in part special propositions, applying to the separate 
branches and those arrived at only from the exact knowl- 
edge of the objects 4 themselves. 

The highest principles of explanatory theory cannot be 
accordingly demonstrated, but only strengthened as to their 
validity for all particulars. They must be sought out by 

1 His investigation also concerning contradiction, indirect proof, and 
false conclusions answers this end. 

2 Anal post., I. 3, 72 b, 18. 3 Ibid., 7, 75 a, 39. 
4 Anal, prior., I. 30, 46 a, 17. 



ARISTOTEE 253 

science in its development (investigation in distinction from 
aTToheifys). The process of induction (iiraycoyr]), as opposed 
to deduction, promotes this attempt. Induction ascends 
from the facts of experience (Jpireipia) and the opinions 
(evSoga) about experience to the universal conceptual defi- 
nitions by which the former are explained. This task of 
investigation, directed to the establishment of principles, is 
called Dialectic 1 by Aristotle. The Topics develop its 
method. Its results are not logically certain in themselves, 
but only probable. They have, however, the character of 
knowledge in so far as they explain phenomena; while on 
the other hand this dialectic, operating as it does with 
probable proof (eW^e^/mra) forms, where it is used in the 
practical service of politics, the scientific foundation of 
rhetoric. 

Immediate certainty formed an extremely difficult, but also the 
most important, tenet of the Aristotelian theory of knowledge. In 
contrast to Plato, the Stagirite here distinguished the logical 
from the psychological point of view in a very suggestive way. 
The ultimate and fundamental propositions, from which all 
inference proceeds, are logically undemonstrable, but they are 
neither psychologically innate, nor are they gained in early life. 
They must rather be won from experience, through which they 
cannot be demonstrated but only presented. What the nature 
of these highest principles is, Aristotle did not explain. From 
the logical laws valid for all sciences, he mentioned only the 
above, — especially the principle of contradiction as the most 
unconditional and most universal fundamental principle. 2 He 
emphasized very rightly that particular principles belong to the 
individual sciences, but he did not develop these in detail. 

What Aristotle understood by induction is to be carefully dis- 
criminated from the present meaning of the word. He, for in- 
stance, did not mean by induction a kind of proof that is different 
from the syllogism, but, on the contrary, a method of research 
and discovery. From this very fact he was satisfied in its 
application with a relatively universal (i-trl to tto\v) everywhere, 
where human knowledge does not lead to the absolutely univer- 
sal. The syllogistic explanation of all particulars from uni- 

1 Met., TIT. 2, 1004 b, 25; Top., I. 2, 101b, 2. 

2 Met., III. o, 1005 b, 17. 



254 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

versal principles floated before him as the ultimate ideal of all 
science. But, as a matter of fact, the material of experience 
reaches in many ways (and everywhere in the special sciences) 
only to an approximate comprehensiveness, which satisfies the 
needs of explanation within empirical limits. At this point 
Aristotle caused the investigator of nature to assume the role 
that the philosopher is obliged to relinquish. 

Another practical point of view, the political, supplements 
scientific exactness in the science of rhetoric by means of 
instructive persuasiveness (iuOvfxrjfxa), which is supported upon 
what is in general true. Accordingly rhetoric in the scientific 
form that Aristotle first gave to it, is in respect to its purpose, 
an auxiliary science of politics. But in its content and the 
technism developed from it, it is a branch of Dialectic and 
the Topics. For if a speech be parliamentary, juridical, or 
aesthetic (o-vft/SovXevTLKov, $ikclvu<6v, IttlZclktikov yivos — Hhetoric, 
1, 3), it must always begin with popular ideas in order to lead 
the auditors to the speaker's goal. We can refer here only in a 
general way to the accuracy of the applied psychology with 
which Aristotle gave his directions in the .Rhetoric. 

When Aristotle thus regarded the derivation of the 
particular from the universal as the ultimate problem of 
science, but maintained that the insight into the highest 
principles, though not indeed proved, is sought for and 
clarified by the epagogic investigation based upon facts, this 
apparent circle of reasoning explains itself from the con- 
ception which he held of the human thinking process and 
its relation to the essence of things. He held this, more- 
over, in intimate connection with his general view of the 
world. For he meant that the historical and psychological 
development of human knowledge corresponds inversely to 
the metaphysical and logical connection of things, in that 
the thinking process, bound as it is to sense perception and 
developing from it, is recipient of the phenomena ; and 
that then from the phenomena it advances by induction to 
a conception of the true essence of things. Out of this as 
their fundamental ground the perceivable things arose, and 
are therefore to be entirely explained by the perfected 
science through the process of deduction. 



ARISTOTLE 255 

The inverted parallelism in which the method of deduction 
(Analytics) and that of investigation (Topics) exist in Aris- 
totle's teaching, is explained by his distinction between psycho- 
logical and logical relations. That, for instance, which is the 
7rp6r€pov 7rpos -i^uas, i. e., the phenomena, is the varrepov rfj cf)v<reL ; 
conversely, that which is the irporepov t# cftvaa, i. e., the essence of 
the thing, appears in the development of our ideas as the vcrrepov 
77-pos ^as. 1 While the relationship between cause and effect is 
identical with that between ground and consequent for the ideal 
of a perfect explanatory science, this relation in the genesis of 
knowledge is inverted. In investigation the (sensible and 
particular) result is the basis of our knowledge of (conceptual 
and universal) cause. As soon as we, in accordance with the 
philosopher's explanations, discriminate between the ideal 
problems of explanatory science and the actual process of 
investigations leading to it, all apparent differences and difficul- 
ties of some of his single expressions vanish. Aristotle made 
use of his universal metaphysical concepts of possibility and actu- 
ality (§ 41, and Zeller, III 3 . 198 f.) for conceiving the psycho- 
genetic development of perception in his explanatory theory, in 
that he assumed that the concept of Essence that has not come 
actualty into consciousness is latent as an undeveloped possi- 
bility in sense representation. 

The most important point is that, accordingly, human knowl- 
edge can obtain a conception of the essential and the permanent 
only through exact and careful scrutim' of the facts. In these 
teachings Aristotle theoretically adjusted Platonism to empiri- 
cal science. Aristotle was not at all the nominalist or empiri- 
cist that he has been represented here and there ; but he 
showed that the problem which Plato set for himself, and which 
he made his own, was to be solved only through the widest 
elaboration of the facts. 

The fundamental philosophical question about the con- 
ceptual essence of that which really is, could be solved, 
according to Aristotle, only in systematic connection with 
the explanation of the facts. The logical form of these 
solutions for which all science accordingly strives, is 
Definition 2 (optoyxo?) in which the permanent essence (ovala, 
to rt tjv elvat) is established as the ground of the changing 
conditions and manifestations (ra avfjufte fir) koto) for every 

1 Anal, post., I. 2, 71 b, 34. 

2 See especially the sixth book of the Topics. 



256 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

single phenomenon ; but at the same time the conceptual 
dependence upon the more universal is expressed. The 
logical form is therefore the judgment of determination in 
which the subject is defined by its superordinated class-con- 
cept and by its own specific characteristic. These deter- 
minations of concepts are based partly upon deduction and 
partly upon induction, but they in turn presuppose ulti- 
mately underivable and only illustrable definitions of the 
highest class-concepts (<yeuy). 

Concepts appear thus here as content of immediate knowledge, 
and their unfolding (the analytical judgments of Kant) gives 
the highest axioms of the deductive theories. See Zeller, III 3 . 
190 f. Here appears a wider development of the Socratic- 
Platonic principle for the explanation of realit}'. M. Rassow, 
Arist. de notionis definitiojie doctri?ia (Berlin, 1843) ; C. Kiihn, 
De notionis definitione qualem Arist. constituent (Halle, 1844). 

The Aristotelian system of concepts has no point of uni- 
fication like the Platonic Idea of the Good. As a scientifi- 
cally inclined thinker, he remained entirely conscious of 
the many possible independent points of departure for 
scientific theory, and he demanded only that every branch 
of knowledge should grow from his peculiar principle. He, 
however, made no attempt to collect and systematically to 
arrange the indemonstrable principles {Secret dvairoheacToi), 
and just as little the resulting immediate premises (irpord- 
tret? a/juecroi). 

The possible kinds of predicates, the Categories, are the 
highest class-concepts for logical investigation, and are 
irreducible. They represent the different points of view 
under which the different concepts can be made elements 
of a proposition or judgment by virtue of the factual rela- 
tions of their contents. Aristotle gave ten 1 categories : 
ovcrta, iroaov, ttoiov, Trpos n, irov, 7rore, iroietv, irda^eiv, 
KelaOai, eyeiv. He sometimes, however, omits the last two. 2 

i Top., I. 9, 103 b, 21 ; De cat., 4, 1 b, 25. 

2 Anal, post., I. 22, 83 b, 16; Phys., V. 1, 225 b, 5; Met., IV. 7, 
1017 a, 24. 



ARISTOTLE 257 

A. Trendelenburg, Gesch. der Kategorienlehre (Berlin, 
1846) ; H. Bonitz, Arist. /Studien, Part VI. ; Fr. Brentano, 
Von der mannigfachen Bedeutung des Seienden nach Arist. 
(Freiburg in Breisgau, 1862) ; W. Schuppe, Die arist. 
Kategorien (G-leiwitz, 1866) ; Fr. Zelle, Der Unterschied in 
der Auffassung der Logik bei Arist. u. Kant (Berlin, 1870) ; 
G. Bauch, Aristotelische Studien (Dobberan, 1884) ; W. 
Luthe, Die arist. Kategorien (Ruhrort, 1874) ; A. Gercke, 
Ur 'sprung der arist. Kategorien {Arch. f. Gesch. d. Ph., IV. 
424 f.). 

Metaphysical motives enter into Aristotle's theory of the cate- 
gories no more than into his whole system of logic, which has, 
as its most general presupposition, the identity of the Form of 
thought with that of Being. The principle of this theory is 
manifestly concerned with the office the elements of judgment 
{to. Kara (ir]0€{iiav crv^nrKoKYiv Xeyo^ieva, — cat. 4) are fitted to 
assume in the judgment itself. They are either that whereof 
affirmation is made, and which can only be subject, i. e., the 
ovo-ia, the ri eo~™ ; or that which is predicated of the substance, 
and is to be thought as actual only in connection with it. Aris- 
totle made this contrast of the ovo-ia to all the other categories 
{Anal, post., I. 22, 83 b, 24). Under the o-vfi^e^Kora he dis- 
tinguished {Met., XIII. 2, 1089 a, 10) only modes and relations 
{■n-aO-q, 7rpo's rt). In the minute enumeration of possible pred- 
icates, the advance is unmistakable from quantitative and 
qualitative determinations to spatial and temporal relations and 
thence to causal relations and dependence. Also the grammati- 
cal distinctions of substantive, adjective, adverb, and verb, appear 
to play parts in the ten or eight categories. The medial catego- 
ries, Kiio-Oat and exeiv, were held by the philosopher occasionally 
as unnecessarj', compared to the active and passive. 

41. Aristotle's attempt to reconcile the theory of Ideas 
with his empirical conception of the world is developed 
in his Metaphysics, chiefly in his theory "concerning that 
which really is {ovo-ia). The conviction that only a con- 
ceptual universal can be the object of true knowledge, i. e., 
absolute actuality, forbids us thinking the content of tem- 
porary, particular perceptions as ovo-ia. On the other 
hand, the conviction that the universal does not have a 
higher actuality, separated from sense objects, forbids the 
hypostasizing of class concepts in the Platonic manner. 

17 



25S HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

True actuality is the individual which is thought of con- 
ceptually in contrast to changing states and conditions 
(avfifiePrjfcoTa). Accordingly in it, and only in it, does the 
general determination (elSo?) become actual. The ulti- 
mate object of scientific knowledge is neither the particular 
form perceived nor the schemata of abstraction, but the 
thing which maintains its conceptual essence in the change 
of its sensible phenomenal aspects. 

In the concept of the ova-la, both antithetical tendencies of 
Aristotelian thought come together in such a way that his defini- 
tion thereof is as difficult as it is important. Here is a task 
which, as it happens, is not facilitated by the technical use of 
the word ovata in the preserved writings. Plato gave form to 
this concept in antithesis to yeVeo-i?, and constructed the same 
opposition between Aoyo? and ataOrjats, and Aristotle remained 
everywhere loyal to the same use of the terms. But he gave 
objectively to ovata and accordingly subjectively to Aoyos an 
entirely different content. He asserted most positively that 
complete metaphysical reality belongs only to the individuals * 
as over against a dualism (xwpio-/uos). The class concepts (etS^ 
and yiv-q, species and genera) are always only qualities, which 
are common to several things, can be actual only in things, and 
predicated 2 of things. They subsist not -irapa ra iroWd but 
Kara 7roAAwv. 3 This factor in the teaching of Aristotle makes 
him later appear as the opponent of scholastic realism, i. e., as 
the opponent of the recognition of the metaphysical priority of the 
class concepts, and it makes him also appear as a nominalist by 
the same sign. This tendency is expressed so strongly in the 
preserved form of the writing 7repi Kar-qyoptw* that there the 
individual things are designated as irpuTat ovatat, beside which 
the yiv-q can be called only by way of derivation Sevrepat ovatat. 
On the other hand, Aristotle distinguished with exactitude every 
present perception of phenomenal things from the conceptually 
recognizable substances (fj Kara rbv Xoyov ovaia)? He asserted 
that these, permanent in contrast to phenomena, are determined 
by the eTSos. The eTSos is true Being : to tl fy ehat eKao-Tw Kal 

1 Met., II. 6, 1003 a, 5. 

2 Ibid., VI. 13, 1038 b, 8; Anal, post., I. 4, 73 b, 26. 
8 Anal, post., I. 11, 77 a, 5. 

4 De cat., 5, 2 a, 11. See Met., IV. 8, 1017 b, 10. 
6 Met., V. 1, 1025 a, 27. 



ARISTOTLE 259 

T7]v trpon-qv ovatav. 1 This ovata is, then, the essence which is 
determined and recognizable by its universal, permanent 
qualities. It is an essence which is the basis of the perceptual 
phenomenal forms. Therefore ova-La can sometimes mean es- 
sence, sometimes species, sometimes Form, sometimes stuff. 
Met., VI. 3, 1028 b, 33 ; Zeller, III 3 . 344 f. 

Metaphysical reality is, then, to be found between the 
class-forms and the perceptual forms : viz., in the concept- 
ually determined individual thing. Aristotle attempted to 
obviate the difficulty of this manner of representation by 
the universal relationship which governs his entire under- 
taking : the relationship of matter to Form, of possibility 
to its actuality. This mediation between the universal, 
conceptual essence of things and its particular, percep- 
tual phenomenon, he found in the Principle of Develop- 
ment. His conception of the nature process Qyevecn^i) 
was : that therein the permanent, original essence (ovaia) 
of things passed over from mere possibility (&W/u?), into 
actuality (ivipyeca) ; that this process completes itself 
when matter (tfA??), which contains all possibilities in itself, 
yields to the Form (etSo?, fiopcfrrj) that is latent in it. Aris- 
totle took analogies in part from human technical activity, 
and in part from the life of organic bodies, for grounding 
this theory, and they became to him the fundamental 
ideas of his conception of the world. 

These fundamental ideas were for Aristotle the universal form 
of apperception, under which he regarded all things and sought 
to solve all problems, — sometimes too in a very schematic way. 
When we speak of a formalism of the Aristotelian method, the 
formalism lies in the predominance of these concepts of relation, 

1 Met., VI. 1032 b, 1. The apparent terminological contradiction 
between this passage and De cat. 5, does not necessarily mean that the 
categories are spurious. The contradiction is explained away by the 
fact that on the one hand ovaia means sometimes the perceived thing 
(Met., II. 4, 999 b, 14, ovaia aiVflp-i), ibid., VII. 2, 1028 b, 24) some- 
times essence, while Ei&>?, on the other hand, means sometimes species- 
concept, sometimes Form. 



260 HISTOEY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

which are not always in point of content the same for the 
philosopher. This is shown very plainly in their application to 
the problematic relation of the particular with the universal. On 
the one hand, that is to say, the class forms the undetermined 
possibility (v7roK€Lfx€vov, aopiarov) which is not actual for itself 
alone : viz., the material which is formed and accordingly actual- 
ized in the ovaia by a specific difference (reAevrata Sta^opa). 1 
On the other hand, these universal determinations are also 
the Forms through which and on account of which all actualiza- 
tion of the possible is explicable. 2 There is no doubt that 
Aristotle's acceptation of the double meaning (Form and Class- 
concept) of the elSos is an important factor in the unsolved 
difficulties of the situation. 

The examples that Aristotle used 3 for elucidating this funda- 
mental relationship, viz., house, statue, growth of plants, prove 
on the one hand that the principal motive of this most impor- 
tant doctrine was the need of explaining process and change ; 
on the other hand, that the philosopher had in mind sometimes 
the work of the artisan upon the plastic material and sometimes 
the organic process of development. The ratification therein 
found of the teleological presupposition developed to a universal 
principle of explanation. Aristotle is throughout governed by 
Plato in this formation of his fundamental principle, and the 
ascendency of his philosophy wholly obscured the mechanical 
conception of the world of Democritus. 

In this connection Aristotle perfected in these concepts of 
relation the ripest synthesis of the Heracleitan and Eleatic prin- 
ciples that inspired ancient philosophy. Those who had tried 
to recognize the permanent had, Plato not excepted, not been 
able to explain Becoming. Those to whom change was patent 
had been able to give to it either no substrate, or no meaning 
comprehensible in view of the essence of that which really is. 
Aristotle established the concept of that which possesses Being 
as the substance that realizes itself and is conceived in the pro- 
cess from possibility to its actualization. He believed, accord- 
ingly, that this definition satisfied both the ontological and the 
genetic interest of science. The earlier systems, he taught, 4 

1 Arist. Met., VII. 6, 1045 a, 23. 

2 Precisely for this reason Aristotle has used ovaia and eldos many 
times as equivalents, while in the stricter meaning the ovaia is a avvo- 
\ov e'| vXrjs Kai e'lbovs- 

3 Met., VI. 8, 1033 a, 27 ; VII. 2, 1043 a, 14 ; VIII. 6, 1048 a, 32 ; 
Phys., I. 7, 190 a, 3, etc. 

4 Phys., I. 6 ff. ; especially I. 8, 191 a, 34. 



ARISTOTLE 261 

have furnished the proof that Becoming is to be explained as 
derived neither out of that which is nor out of that which is not, 
nor out of the union of the two. So it remained to conceive of 
that which is as something which in its inmost essence is in the 
process of development. It remained also to formulate the con- 
cept of Becoming so that it formed the transition from a condi- 
tion of a substratum, that no longer is, to one that not yet is, for 
which the transition is essential. 

Compare J. C. Glaser, Die MetaphysiJc des Arist. (Berlin, 
1841) ; F. Ravaisson, Essai sur la Metaphysique a" Arist. (Paris, 
1837-46) ; J. Barthelemy St. Hilaire, De la Metaphysique (Paris, 
1879) ; Gr. v. Herthing, Materie undForm bei Arist. (Bonn, 1871). 

The fundamental relation between matter and Form is 
applied on the one hand to individual things, and on the 
other to relations between things in such a way that insight 
into the essence of Becoming (das G-eschehen) is made to 
result from it. In every individual thing Form and matter 
are in such correlation that there can be no such thing as 
formless matter or matterless Form. But precisely on this 
account they are not to be regarded as distinct pre-existing 
potencies which have found their union in the individual ;* 
but the same unitary essence of the individual, in so far as 
it is a potentiality and in so far as it is viewed only as a 
possibility, is matter; and in so far as it presents a complete 
actuality it is Form. There exist neither pure potentialities 
nor perfectly actualized Forms. The ovaia is not merely 
Bwdfiei, nor purely evepyelq. It is rather a potentiality, in 
the continuous process of actualization. ' The temporal 
change in its conditions is determined by the changing 
measure of this actualization. Aristotle called the poten- 
tiality which belongs to the essence of the individual 2 and 
comes to reality in the individual, the k(rya T7 ) vXy. 

1 The potential tree and the complete tree do not exist independent 
of and before the growing tree. They are only different conceptions of 
the thing that is forming itself in the tree. 

2 Met., VII. 6, 1045 b, 18 ; VI. 10, 1035 b, 30. The expression is used 
in the logical sense. In the descending process from the most universal, 



262 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

On the other hand, this relationship becomes entirely dif- 
ferent whenever it obtains between different individual 
things. In this case, where one is the receptive matter and 
the other is the moulding Form, the two stand also in a rela- 
tion of necessary reciprocity. Yet they exist also indepen- 
dent of each other, and only in their union create the new 
thing in that now the one is the matter and the other is the 
Form. 1 In all these cases the relation of Form and matter 
is only a relative one, because the same thing can be con- 
ceived in one aspect as Form and in another aspect as 
matter for a higher Form. 

There is, therefore, a scale of things in which every indi- 
vidual is the Form in respect to what is beneath it and the 
matter in respect to what is higher. This system of devel- 
opment must, however, have a limit, both below and above : 
below in a matter which is no longer Form ; above in a Form 
which is no longer matter. The former is stuff-material 
(7rpcorr) v\r)) ; the latter is pure Form or Godhood (to tl rjv 
elvai to irpcorov). Since, however, matter is pure possibility, 
it does not exist for itself, but ever in formed states. It is, 
nevertheless, the foundation for the realization of all par- 
ticular Forms. On the other hand, the concept of pure Form, 
as absolute reality, excludes all matter, all pure possibility, 
and signifies accordingly perfect Being. 

Aristotle did not expressly formulate the two different uses of 
the schemata of possibility and actualit} 7 , matter and Form (poten- 
tia and actus), but he thoroughly applied them in practice. One 

undetermined possibility (7rp6>Trj vXrj) to ever narrower definition of 
essence and logical determination, the specific difference, by which the 
individual is distinguished in its genus proximum from other individuals, 
is " the last." This difference coincides with the form of the individual. 
Yet sometimes this is entirely turned about and designated as irparr} v\r] 
of the individual. See Met., IV. 4, 1014 b, 32. 

1 Thus the timber exists, and the thought of the house in the head of 
the builder exists, each by itself. The house is the result of the co- 
operating influence of the Form of the latter with the material. 



ARISTOTLE 263 

use of these terms is suited to organic development, the other to 
technical activit}*. In this difference alone can be explained the 
fact that this difficult subject is sometimes so presented as if 
8vva^L<s and ivepyeia were identical in essence, and only different 
ways of conception or phases of development of the same ovaia 
uniting tlSos and vXrj in itself. At other times Form and matter 
are represented as separate realities, which influence each other. 
There is a kind of reconciliation between both methods of repre- 
senting the case ; for also in the first method the two factors, 
which are separated only in abstracto are yet so treated as if one 
influenced the other ; x the automatic or self-developing process 
is so presented as if it divided itself into a moving Form and a 
moved Stuff. 2 

In presenting matter 3 thus on the one hand as the not-yet 
actual, on the other, nevertheless, as the unoriginated and inde- 
structible 4 basis (v7roK€L^evov) of all Becoming, in conceiving 
the system of the latter as an unbroken progress from possibility 
to actuality, finally in defining the Godhead as an absolutely 
pure exclusion of all possibility from himself, the Aristotelian 
philosophy, like the Platonic, established differing grades and 
kinds of metaphysical reality. The lowest is matter whose posi- 
tive character is recognized by Aristotle in his rejection of the 
Democritan-Platonic term jurj 6V and in his desire to call it 
o-T€pr](TL<s in so far as it is thought in abstracto as deprived of all 
Form. The highest is the Form complete in itself and entirely 
changeless, corresponding to the Idea, or ama of Plato. Between 
these two extremes there is the whole realm of graded things, 
in which and between which, movement passes from the lower to 
the higher grades of actuality. Different grades of knowledge 
correspond in Aristotle to the different grades of Being. Matter 
as the a|ttop</>ov, airupov, and a6pL<rrov, is also the deiSes and the 
ayi/oxrrov. 5 Since all systematic knowledge is directed toward 
the etSo? and the ovarta, and God is pure form and primary es- 
sence, the object of the highest and most perfect knowledge is 
the Godhead. The things of Becoming must, however, be con- 
ceived in that their eTSos is developed out of their vXr). 

1 As shown especially in the activity of the soul ; § 42. 

2 Phys., III. 2, 202 a, 9. 

3 See Jas. Scherler, Darstellung und Wiirdigung des Begriffs der 
Materie bei Arist. (Potsdam, 1873). 

4 Met., VII. 1, 1042 a, 32 ; 3, 1043 b, 14. 

5 Phys., III. 6, 207 a, 25; Met., VI. 10, 1036 a, 8 ; De ccelo, III. 8, 
306 b, 17. 



264 HISTOEY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

Motion, Becoming, and Change is a transition from the 
condition of possibility to that of actuality, and is based 
in part upon the essence of the individuals themselves, in 
part upon their relations to one another. Development 
belongs accordingly to the nature of things, and is eternal, 
without beginning or end. 1 Every motion (kIvwo-ls) presup- 
poses on the one hand moved material, which is the primal 
state of possibility, and on the other hand the moving Form, 
which is the final state of actuality. Form is then the cause 
of the motion which is to be found 2 in that which really is. 
In so far as the ivepyeca creates this process of actualization, 
it is also called by Aristotle ivrekexeia. On the other hand, 
motion, precisely as transition, is determined not only by that 
which is about to become and which exercises the impelling 
force ; but also by that out of which it is to become, — by 
the matter to be changed and bearing in itself the possibility 
of change. Matter stands, however, in an essential relation 
to its Form, and has therefore the tendency to realize 3 the 
Form. In this, matter reciprocates the influence of Form. 
As possibility, it is also possibility for something else, and 
in so far it conditions movement to the extent of preventing 
perfect realization of the Form, and of bringing about inci- 
dental results which do not directly follow from the Form. 
In this sense matter is the cause of the imperfect and the 
accidental in nature. 

Thus, according to Aristotle, two kinds 4 of causes are 
to be distinguished in the explanation of motion : the 
formal causes and the material causes. The former are 
teleological (ov eve/ca) ; the latter are mechanical (ef 
avd^jKni). Purpose and nature-necessity are of equal im- 
portance as principles of the cosmic process. The Platonic 
and Democritan explanations of nature are reconciled in 
the relation of Form and matter. 

i Phys., VIII. 1, 252 b, 5. 2 Met., VIII 8, 1049 b, 24. 

3 Phys., I. 9, 192 b, 16. 4 Depart, an., I. 1, 639 b, 11. 



AKISTOTLE 265 

Aristotle incidentally x distinguished four principles (dpx a m 
explaining movement : v\rj, etSos, v<j> ov, rtXos. But the three last 
are together always contrasted with the first. If the three are 
sometimes separated in the realm of particular processes, they 
form nevertheless more frequently only one principle (especially 
in the organic development of the individual) in that the essence 
of the fact (etSos), as the thing to be realized (rekos), is the mov- 
ing force (kivovv). 

In this sense as teleologicai cause the substance or essence is 
entelechy. The expressions ej/epyeia and ivTe\€x €La are gener- 
ally indifferently used in Aristotle, and an exact difference is 
hardly attempted, certainly not developed, between the two 
words. See Zeller, III 3 . 350 f. The etymology of the word 
reXoq is obscure : see R. Hirzel, ivreXix^a und Iv^Xe^ia (Mliein. 
Museum, 1884). 

The reality, which Aristotle ascribed to matter, appears most 
significantly in the reciprocal actions that he gave to it in its 
relation to final cause. It is due to the indeterminateness of 
vX.rj, 2 that the Forms are imperfectly realized. In this respect 
matter is a principle of obstruction. Hence it follows that for 
Aristotle nature's laws, which originate in the conceptual forms 
of things, are not without exceptions, but are valid only iin to 
7roXv. 3 In this way he explained unusual phenomena, ripara, — 
abortions, monstrosities, and the like. But furthermore the 
positive character of matter appears in that it leads to acciden- 
tal results 4 in motion on account of its indeterminate possi- 
bilities, and these accidents are not immediately involved in the 
essence or purpose. 5 Aristotle named these o-vfjfteprjKOTa, 
accidental ; their appearance he called chance, avrofiarov ; 6 and, 
within the region of purposed events, tvxv- 7 Aristotle's con- 
ception of accident, therefore, is entirely teleologicai. It is also 
logical so far as the purpose is identical with the concept. See 
W. Windelband, Die Lehren vom Zufall (Berlin, 1870) p. 58 f., 
69 ff. 

The application of the name avayicq to the efficiency of the 
stuff makes us at once see Aristotle's intention of recognizing 

1 Met., I. 3, 983 a, 26 ; IV. chap. 2 ; Phys., II. 3, 194 b, 23. 

2 De gen. an., IV. 10, 778 a, 6. 

3 Depart, an., III. 2, 663 b, 28 ; De gen. an., IV. 4, 770 b, 9. 

4 Phys., II. 4 ff. 

5 These happen irapa (frvaiv (Phys., II. 6, 197 b, 34), in which cj>v(ns 
= ovaia — eioos. Compare the expression napacpvas, Eth. Nic, I. 4, 
1096 a, 21. 

6 Phys., II. 6, 197 b, 18. 7 lbid ^ 5> 196 b? 23 . 



266 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

the Democritan principle of mechanism, while at the same time 
the teleological activity of the Form is manifestly only a de- 
velopment of the Platonic concept of the akca. Democritns 
thought that an event is determined only through what pre- 
ceded it ; Plato thought an event determined by what shall 
issue from it. Aristotle sought to reconcile this antagonism, 
and so he attributed to matter one kind of determination and to 
form the other kind. His teaching is therefore the last word of 
Greek philosophy on the problem of Becoming (§ 13). 

But, however much the philosopher takes account of the 
Democritan motive, yet in this solution the Platonic thought 
obviously preponderates. For not only the higher actuality 
belongs to the final cause in contrast to that of the material 
cause, but also in their operations they are so distinguished that 
all results of value come from the final cause, while all that is 
less important comes from the material cause. Matter is the 
ground of all imperfection, change, and destruction. To its 
positive capacity for obstruction and deflection Aristotle 
ascribed, with a far better right, all those consequences with 
which Plato overloaded the prj 6v. This preference of the Stagi- 
rite for his teacher shows itself also in his introduction of 
mechanical causes under the names owcutlov and ov ovk avev, 
which are taken from the Phcedo and the Timceus. 1 In this 
way mechanical causes are characterized directly as causes of 
the second class, or accidental causes. Matter alone could not 
move, but if it is moved by the Form, it nevertheless is a deter- 
mining factor in the movement. Matter is, then, in every 
respect a secondary cause. 

With this active antagonism the Aristotelian teaching mani- 
fests, in spite of its effort at harmony, an expressly dualistic 
character which ancient thought could not overcome. For the 
independence of existence and activit}* , attributed to matter in 
the explanation of nature, permeates the entire system along with 
his fundamental monistic principle, that matter and Form are 
essentially identical, and matter is only a striving toward the 
realization of Form. All the oppositions meet finally in Aris- 
totle's conception of God. 

Every motion in the world has a (relative) apxni which 
is the Form that causes it. Since, however, on account of 
its connection with matter, this Form is also itself moved, 
the series of causes would have no end 2 unless there 

i Phys., II. 9, 200 a, 5 ; Met., IV. 5, 10 15 a, 20. 
2 Met., XI. 6, 1071 b, 6. 



ARISTOTLE 267 

exists, as an absolute dpxv of all motion, the pure Form, 
the sharer of no mere possibility and. therefore of no 
motion, — the Godhead. Itself unmoved, it is the cause of 
all motion, the Trpcorov kivovv. 1 Eternal even as motion 2 
itself, unitary and single even as the band of the entire 
system 3 of the universe, and unchangeable, 4 it calls all the 
motions of the world forth, but not by its own activity. 
That would be a motion in which the Godhead, as without 
matter, cannot share. 5 But it calls forth all the motion of 
the world through the desire of all things for it, and 
through the endeavor of all things to actualize Kara to 
Svvcltov the Form that is eternally realized in the Godhead. 
As the object of desire, it is the cause of all motion : Kuvel 

ft>9 €pCt)/Jb6VOV. Q 

The essence of the Godhead is immateriality, 7 perfect in- 
corporeality, pure spirituality, vovs. It is thought, which 
has no other content than itself (vorjacs vofjcrecos), 8 and 
this self-contemplation (decopta) is its eternal blessed life. 9 
God wishes nothing, God does nothing. 10 He is absolute 
self-consciousness. 

In the conception of the Godhead as the absolute Spirit who, 
himself unmoved, moves the universe, Aristotle's theory of 
nature culminated in such a way that he designated his science 
of principles as a theology. The scientific establishment of 
monotheism, which, since Xenophanes, formed a leading theme 
of Greek philosophy, appeared here completed as its ripest 
fruit. In its form it is like the so-called cosmological proof; 
in its content, through its concept of the Godhead as a pure 
spirit, it is far superior to all the earlier attempts. The funda- 
mental principles of Plato are just at this point, however, 

i Met, III. 8, 1012 b, 31. 2 Phys., VIII. 6, 258 b, 10. 

8 Met., XI. 8, 1074 a, 36. 

4 dva\\oi(OTos and airaBos : Met., XI. 7, 1073 a, 11. 

5 Ibid., 1072 b, 7. 6 Ibid., 1072 a, 26. 

7 Ibid., 1073 a, 4 : KexoopKr/xevt] rooi> aladrjrcov. 

8 Ibid., 1074 b, 34. 9 Ibid., 1072 b, 24. 
10 Eth. Nic, X. 8, 1178 b, 8 ; Be coelo, II. 12, 292 b, 4. 



268 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

decisive for Aristotle. For the Aristotelian doctrine centres 1 
in God all attributes which Plato had ascribed to the Ideas, and 
the way in which the Stagirite determined the relation of God 
to the world is only the exact and sharp definition of the teleo- 
logical principle, which Plato had indicated by the ahta. On 
this account the Aristotelian Godhead shares with the Platonic 
Idea the characteristic of transcendence. In his theology, 
Aristotle is the perfecter of Platonic immaterialism. Thought 
conceived itself and hypostasized its self-consciousness as the 
essence of the Godhead. 

The self-sufficiency of the God of Aristotle, to whose absolute 
perfection there can be no want, 2 whose activit}', directed upon 
himself and upon naught else, can be no activity nor creation 
in our sense of the word, did not satisfy the later religious 
need. This idea is, however, the true corner-stone of his 
system, and at the same time eloquent testimony for the theo- 
retic character of the Aristotelian philosophy. 

Jul. Simon, De deo Aristotelis (Paris, 1839) ; A. L. Kym, 
Die Gotteslehre des Aristoteles und das Christentum (Zurich, 
1862) ; L. F. Goetz, Der aristotelisehe Gottesbegriff, mit Bezug 
auf die cliristliche Gottesidee (Leipzig, 1871). 

42. Aristotle looked upon nature as the organic bond 
of all individuals, which actualize their Form in their 
motions, and in their totality are determined by pure Form 
as their highest purpose. There is, therefore, only this 
one 3 world, and this world is permeated 4 in its activity 
with a purpose both in the motions and relationships of 
the individual things. The actualizing of the purposes 
of things, however, occurs always through the motion of 
matter (klv7)<tls or /jL€Ta(3o\r)) . This motion 5 is either 
change of place (/cara to ttov — (f>opd), or change of 

1 Therefore, in contrast to Speusippus, the Homeric citation is given 
in the spirit of monism : ovk dyaBov 7ro\vKoipavLr) ' els Koipavos earco. 
Met., XL 10, 1076 a, 4. 

2 He is avrdpxvs- Ibid., XIII. 4, 1091 b, 16. 

8 De ccelo, I. 8, 276 a, 18 ; Met., XL 8, 1074 a, 31. 

4 Phys., II. 2 and 8; De ccelo, I. 4, 271 a, 33 : 6 Beds nai fj <pv<ris 
ovbev fxaTTjv rroiovcriv. Polit., I. 8, 1256 b, 20. 

5 Phys., V. 2, 225 b, 18; II. 1, 192 b, 14. 



ARISTOTLE 269 

quality (/cara to ttolov — aUoiwo-i?), or change in quan- 
tity {Kara to ttoctov — avgrjats teal (jjdicrw). 

Ch. Leveque, La physique d'Aristote et la science contem- 
poraine (Paris, 1863). 

cj>v<ris was, in truth, in Aristotle not a substance, nor an 
individual, but a unitary somewhat, the total teleological life of 
the corporeal world. In this sense he spoke of the activities, 
purposes, etc., of nature. In connection with his theory of 
nature belongs therefore also that of the soul, because, although 
not corporeal itself, the soul as Form of the body is its principle 
of motion. On the contrary, all those bodies are excluded from 
his definition of nature which get their form and motion from 
human activity, and not from their own essence. 1 

Teleology in Aristotelianism was not only a postulate, but 
also a developed theory. It was not at all a mythical imagining, 
but an essential doctrinal principle. The Platonic principle in 
this theory did not displace the Democritan, but the Democritan 
is accepted as a factor, since the mechanical motion having 
its basis in the material appears as a means toward the 
actualization of the Form. 

The teleological fundamental principle, that there is a rela- 
tionship of rank and value among phenomena, governs Aris- 
totle's conception of the three kinds of motion. Change of 
place is the lowest, yet it is indispensable to the higher processes. 
For qualitative changes perfect themselves always by spatial 
dislocations, like condensation and rarefaction. 2 On the other 
hand, growth is always conditioned 3 by the qualitative processes 
of assimilation and the consequently necessary spatial changes. 
Thus this division makes the gradation into mechanical, chemi- 
cal, and organic processes, in which the higher always involves 
the lower. 

Under the class concept of neTafioXrj, which is, to be sure, 
often made equivalent to /aV^o-is, Aristotle contrasted origina- 
tion (yeWo-is) and destruction (<f>0opa) to kivtjo-is in the nar- 
rower sense. This kind of change concerns, however, only the 
compounded individual things, since there is no absolute origi- 
nation and destruction : 4 further, one of the three kinds of motion 
is always present in this change. 

In his investigation into the fundamental principles of 
mechanics, Aristotle came to look upon the world as limited 

1 Phys., II. 1, 193 a, 31. 2 Ibid., VIII. 7, 260 b, 4. 

3 Ibid., 260 a, 29; De gen. et corr., I. 5, 320 a, 15. 

4 Ibid., 3, 317 a, 32. 



270 HISTOKY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

in space, but on the other hand as moving in time without 
beginning or end. He disallowed reality to empty space, 
and denied actio in distans. Motion is possible only through 
contact. 1 

The form of the limited world-all is the most perfect, 
i. e., it is a sphere. Within the world there are two funda- 
mental kinds of motion, — in a circle and in a straight 
line. Of these two, the former, as self-limiting and unitary, 
is the more nearly perfect, while the latter involves the 
opposition of the centripetal and centrifugal directions. 
These primitive spatial motions are distributed among dif- 
ferent kinds of matter. The natural medium of the circular 
motion is the aether, out of which the heavenly bodies are 
formed. Motions in straight lines belong to the elements 
(o-ro^eta) of the terrestrial world. 

Thus Aristotle separated his world-all into two essen- 
tially different systems : the heaven with the regular, 
circular motions of the aether, and the earth with the 
changing, antagonistic, and straight-line motions of the 
elements. The heaven is the place of perfectness, regular- 
ity, and changelessness. The earth is the theatre of im- 
perfection and of the eternally changing manifold. While 
earthly things come and go, while their qualities are 
received and lost, while on earth there is increase and 
diminution, yet the stars do not Become nor pass away. 
Like the blessed gods, they suffer no change, and in un^\ 
changeable revolutions they move in orbits eternally the 
same. 

In the definition of space (twos) as " the boundary of an 
enclosing body on the side of the enclosed " 2 Aristotle went 
beyond the relative space relationships of particular bodies, but 
did not, therefore, reach an intuition of space. In contesting 
the notion of the void, he had Democritus 8 particularly in mind. 

1 Phys., III. 2, 202 a, 6. 

2 Ibid., IV. 4, 211 b, 14 ; Be ccelo, IV. 3, 310 b, 7. 
8 Phys., IV., 4-6. 



ARISTOTLE 271 

In the dispute as to the reality of space, he contended against 
Plato's position, to whose construction of the elements he 
opposed * the distinction between mathematical and physical 
bodies. Against the notion of the endlessness of the corporeal 
world (a-rreipov) he maintained 2 that the world can be thought 
only as complete and perfected, as a fully formed thing. Time, 
on the contrary, as the " measure of motion " 3 and as not actual 
in itself, but used only for computing, 4 is beginningless and 
endless, like the motion that belongs necessarily to Being. 
Therefore the Aristotelian philosophy offered in opposition to 
all earlier philosophy no picture of a creation of the world, and 
contended against in this respect the presentation in the Platonic 
Timceus. 

On the other hand, his philosophy in its essentials was greatly 
influenced bj T the Timceus. For the antagonism, formulated 
by Aristotle in an authoritative way for many hundred years, — 
the antagonism between the heavenly and the terrestrial world, 
— was based entirely upon that which Plato had developed in 
his divisions of the world (see Plato), and also upon those 
dualistic reflections that had been peculiar to the Pythagoreans 
in early times. Aristotle developed these notions in a theoretic 
way. He gave the theory greater forcefulness conceptually than 
had been the case with Plato's mathematical development of it ; 
these notions became transformed at once into qualifications of 
value. 

Such a theory obtained also in the contrast drawn between 
the aether and the four elements. Also in this the Eleatic in- 
variability, unoriginatedness, etc., was attributed to the God- 
head 5 in that he explained the stars as living things moved 
by reasoning spirits of a higher and superhuman order 6 (0eia 
o-oiHara)? Therefore there must be for these a better matter, 
the aether, corresponding to their higher form. 

Aristotle's particular conceptions concerning mechanical mo- 
tion have no peculiarities. His very anthropomorphic division 
into drawing, pushing, carrying, and turning he did not further 
develop, and he did not reach the point of formulating laws of 
mechanics. 

O. Ule, Die Raumtheorien des Arist. und Kant's (Halle, 
1850) ; A. Torstrick, Ueber des Arist. Abhandlung von der Zeit 
(Philol. 1868); H. Siebeck, Die Lehre des Arist. von der 

1 Be ccelo, HI. 1, 299 a, 12. 2 Phys ^ m 5 f# 

3 Ibid., IV. 11, 220 a, 3. 4 Ihid ^ 14j 2 23 a, 21. 

5 Meteor., I. 3, 339 b, 25. « E th. Nic, VI. 7, 1141 a, 1. 

7 Met., XI. 8, 1074 a, 30. 



272 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

Ewiglceit der Welt (Unters. z. Th. d. #., 1873) ; Th. Poselger, 
Arist. mechanischeProbleme (Hannover, 1881). 

The astronomical theory of the Stagirite was, that around 
the stationary sphere of the earth the hollow spheres revolve 
concentrically, in which spheres the moon, sun, five planets, 
and the fixed stars are placed. Aristotle conceived that 
these last, by virtue of their relatively unchanging position, 
have only a common sphere. This heaven of fixed stars 
in the outermost circle of the world is set in motion by the 
Godhead, 1 while the other spheres find the principle of their 
movements in their own spirits. Aristotle followed here 
Eudoxus and Callippus, the pupil of Eudoxus, when in his 
explanation of aberrations he ascribed to the planets a plural- 
ity of spheres dependent on one another in their movements. 
The star concerned was supposed to have its seat in the 
lowest of these spheres. He conceived in his development 
of this theory fifty-five spheres in all. The motions of the 
planets influence the motions of the elements, and in this 
way the planets in general influence terrestrial life. 

The theory of the spheres in the form established under the 
name of Aristotle pushed aside the riper conceptions of the 
Pythagoreans and Platonists. It itself had to yield later to the 
hypothesis of the epicycles. J. L. Ideler, Ueber Eudoxus 
(AbJiandl. d. Berl. Acad., 1830). 

Aristotle provided for a later demonology in his theory of the 
subordinate gods of the spheres of the planets, as on the other 
hand his theory of the dependence of earthly existence on the 
stars gave occasion for astrological superstition. To the chang- 
ing positions of the sun, moon, and planets in relation to the 
earth, he attributed the character of eternal change, which 
in earthly life is to be contrasted with the eternal regularity of 
the " first heaven." a 

Aristotle developed the differences between the earthly 
elements from their tendencies to move in straight lines in 

1 Kivel a)? ipoijxevov, as above mentioned. 

2 Be gen. et corr., II. 10, 336 b, 11. 



AKISTOTLE 273 

opposite directions. Fire is the centrifugal, earth the cen- 
tripetal element. Between the two there is the air, which 
is relatively light, and the water, which is relatively heavy. 
Therefore the earth has its natural place in the middle 
point of the world-all ; and successively toward the peri- 
phery of the heaven, stand water, air, and fire. 

But the elements have qualitative differences as well as 
mechanical, and these are not originally and in particular 
derived from mathematical differences. In their develop- 
ment 1 Aristotle used the same pairs of opposites which had 
played a great role already in the most ancient nature- 
philosophy and afterward in the younger physiology. These 
opposites were warm and cold, dry and moist. Of these 
four fundamental kinds of sensation, he called the two 
first active and the two last passive, and constructed accord- 
ingly out of the four possible combinations the qualities of 
the four elements, each one of which must include 2 an active 
and passive quality. Fire is warm and dry ; air is warm 
and moist ; earth is cold and dry ; water is cold and moist. 
No element appears unmixed in any individual thing; on 
the contrary, there is a mixture of all elements in each 
thing. 

Aristotle explained the common elemental meteorological 
phenomena by means partly of the mechanical, partly of the 
chemical qualities of the elements, using the earlier theories 
in a most comprehensive way. Moreover he made a special 
study of the distinctly chemical processes, and distinguished 
between bodies of equal and of unequal parts, and investi- 
gated the origin of new qualities arising from the combina- 
tion of simple bodies. 

Concerning the predecessors of Aristotle as to the doctrine of 
the elements, see Zeller, III 3 . 441, 2. For Aristotle to have 
assumed the four elements of Empedocles is consistent with the 
traces elsewhere found of the influence of that philosopher. The 

1 Be gen. et corr., II. 2 and 3. 2 Meteor., IV. 1, 378 b, 12. 

13 



274 HISTOKY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

assertion as to the primariness of qualities was aimed expressly 
against Plato and Democritus, and therewith Aristotle turned 
away from mathematical science to an anthropocentric view of 
nature. For, inasmuch as the first qualities of the elements 
were deduced from tactile sensations, so the wider chemical 
investigations were chiefly derived from mixtures of other sense- 
qualities, especially from those of taste and smell, but also as 
well from those of hearing and sight. In this way the investiga- 
tions of physiological psychology (De an., II., and in smaller 
treatises) complete the specific chemical treatments which form 
Meteorologia, IV. 

The contrast of active and passive qualities involved, on the 
one hand, the thought of the internal vitality of all bodies. On 
the other hand, it led in the whole of the system to the applica- 
tion which the different kinds of matter receive in the organisms. 
Yet the present division into organic and inorganic chemistry is 
not to be read into his division of olfioto^eprj and avopouofiepf}, 
even if the latter were also designated as more completely repre- 
senting organic purposiveness. 

That, finally, this beginning of chemical science at first had at 
its disposal very sporadic and inexact knowledge, and in Aris- 
totle was still limited * to clumsy methods of experimentation, 
like boiling, roasting, etc., cannot be wondered at. Neither does 
it detract from the value of the first special treatment of chemical 
problems. See Ideler, Meteorologia veterum (Berlin, 1832). 

The series of grades of living creatures is determined by 
differences of soul, which as the entelechy of the body 2 in 
all things is the Form that moves, changes, and fashions 
matter. Souls also have a relative ranking. 3 The lower 
can exist without the higher, but the higher only in con- 
nection with the lower. The lowest kind of soul is the 
vegetative (to OpeiTTLKov), which is limited in its functions 
to assimilation and propagation, and belongs to plants. 
The animal possesses in addition to this the sensitive soul 
(to oigQ^tlkov), which at the same time is appetitive (6pe- 
KTi/cov), and has also to some degree the power of locomotion 
(klvtjtlkov kclto, tottov). Man possesses, besides both these 
other souls, reason (to ScavorjTi/cov re icaX vovs). 

i Meteor., IV 2 . f. 2 De an., II. 1, 412 a, 27. 

8 Ibid., 3, 414 b, 29. 



ARISTOTLE 275 

The purposiveness of the organism is explicable from the 
activity of the soul. The soul builds 1 for itself out of 
matter the body as an organ, or as a system of organs. It 
finds its limitations only in conflict with matter, whose 
nature-necessity leads to Forms, that are from the circum- 
stances purposeless or purpose-thwarting. 

The significance of Aristotle as an investigator of nature 
lies in his development of organology. Under his principal 
teleological treatment came the questions of systematology, 
of morphology, of anatomy and physiology, and of biology, 
in a way that was for his time exhaustive and for many cen- 
turies authoritative. His philosophical principle was that 
nature strives upward from the very first signs of life, which 
signs can be seen even in inorganic processes, and that 
the striving is expressed in an unbroken series from the 
lowest kinds of spontaneous creations to the highest form 
of terrestrial life which is manifested in man. 

When Aristotle conceived the soul as a principle of inde- 
pendent motion of the individual, he attributed to it a number 
of functions (especially all the vegetative) which pass in the 
present-day science as purely physiological. The soul was 
thought by Aristotle to be incorporeal but nevertheless bound 
to matter which is the possibility of its activity and does not 
therefore exist for itself alone. It has its seat in a particular 
organic matter, — in the Oep/xov or the -n-vev^a, — which is related 
to the aether and is supposed to be found in animals in the 
blood chiefly. In this doctrine Aristotle allowed himself to be 
misled back into the popular view, which was opposed to the in- 
sight of Alcmseon, Democritus, and Plato, that the heart is the 
principal organ of the soul ; and the brain plays the secondary 
rdle of a cooling apparatus for the blood boiled in the heart. 
The spiritus animates of later times were developed theoreti- 
cally from Aristotle's physiological psychology. 

The three grades of life of the soul correspond in general, 
although only very vaguely, to Plato's three divisions of the soul. 
Yet this doctrine is conceived and developed with much more 

1 See classical development of the human form : De part, an., IV. 10, 
686 a, 25. 



276 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

conceptual sharpness and clearness in Aristotle than in his 
predecessor. 

Aristotle's predilection for teleology in the realm of the or- 
ganic sciences, in which his thoroughgoing treatment of the 
facts most brilliantly appears, in no way hindered the care of 
his observations and comparisons. It rather sharpened to a 
high degree his insight into the anatomical structure of the 
organs, their morphological relations, their physiological func- 
tions, and their biological significance. Some mistaken analogies 
and unfortunate generalizations, which have been correctly 
enough charged against him by modern investigators, cannot 
injure the fame which is due him in this field. They are only 
the excrescences and imperfections of his great and comprehen- 
sive conception. In details he utilized chiefly the previous 
works of Democritus, whose mechanical theory, it must be said, 
had not stood in the way of his conception and admiration of 
the purposef ulness of organisms. 

See J. B. Meyer, Aristoteles' Tierkunde (Berlin, 1855) ; Th. 
Watzel, Die Zo'ologie des Aristoteles (in three parts, Reichenberg, 
1878-80). 

The psychology of Aristotle has two parts, which, al- 
though running over into each other, still reveal the pre- 
dominance of two distinct scientific points of view: (1) the 
general theory of animal souls, a doctrine of the psychical 
processes which are possessed in common by animals and 
men, although developed in man more richly and more 
nearly perfectly ; (2) the doctrine of the vovs as the dis- 
tinctive possession of man. We can designate these two 
views as the empirical and speculative sides of Aristotle's 
psychology. The former he treated essentially as an inves- 
tigator by carefully recording, ordering, and explaining the 
facts. The latter view, on the contrary, was governed 
partly by his general metaphysics, partly by his interests 
in epistemology and ethics. 1 

K. Ph. Fischer, De principals Aristotelicce de anima doctrines 
(Erlangen, 1845) ; W. Volkmann, Die Grundzilge der aristo- 

1 Aristotle himself distinguished between the physical and philosoph- 
ical treatment of the soul : De an., I. 403 b, 9; De part, an., I. 1, 641 a, 
17. 



ARISTOTLE 277 

telischen Psychologie (Prague, 1858) ; A. E. Chaignet, Essai 
sur la psychologie d'Aristote (Paris, 1883) ; H. Siebeck, 
GeschicJite der Psychologies I. 2, pp. 1-127 (Gotha, 1884). 

Aristotle found predecessors in empirical psychology, — which 
is partly physiological psychology, as we to-day designate it, but 
is not entirely embraced b} r it, — partly in the physicians and later 
nature-philosophers, partly in Democritus, and also perhaps in 
Plato in the Timoeus. But he also betrayed in his theory of the 
vovs the inclination which had led all early philosophers to adjust 
their conceptions of psychology to their epistemological and 
ethical views. 

The animal soul is differentiated from the vegetable soul 
essentially by its concentration and unity (/xecroTTy?), 1 which 
is wanting in plants. Sensation is the fundamental form 
of activity (al'cr^crt?), which he explained 2 by the con- 
cert of action between the active, Form-giving perceived 
thing and the passive, impressionable perceiving thing, — 
an action mediated in different senses through different 
media. The most primary sense and common to all ani- 
mals is the sense of touch, with which Aristotle likewise 
classified taste. In value, however, hearing is first. 

However, the activity of the special senses is restricted 
to receiving those qualities of the external world which are 
peculiar to the senses themselves, — senses which are in the 
similarity of their material adapted to such reception. 
The combination of the psychic elements, nevertheless, into 
complete perceptions and the conception of the conditions 
of things, which are common to the different senses — the 
conception of their number, their spatial and temporal con- 
nections, their conditions of motion — takes place through 
the central sense organ, the " common-sense " (alaOrjr^poov 
kolvov), which has its seat in the heart. In this central or- 
gan arises our knowledge of our own activities. 3 In it the 
ideas remain 4 as fyavracriai after the external stimulus has 
ceased. Imagination hecomes memory (fjLvrjfMr]) as soon as 

1 Be an., II. 11, 424 a, 4. 2 Ibid., 5, 417 a, 6. 

3 Ibid., III. 2, 425 b, 17. 4 Ibid., 3, 427 b, 14. 



278 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

it becomes recognized as the copy of an earlier perception. 
The entrance of remembered ideas is conditioned upon the 
series in which they are bound together. Upon the basis 
of this association of ideas voluntary recollection is possible 
in man (dva/jLvrjais). 1 

H. Beck, Arist. de sensuum actione (Berlin, 1860) ; A. Crata- 
cap, Arist. de sensibus doctrina (Montpellier, 1866) ; CI. Baumker, 
Des Arist. Lelire von dem ausseren und inneren Sinnesvermogen 
(Leipzig, 1877) ; J. Neuhauser, Arist. Lelire von dem sinnliclien 
Erhenntnisvermogen und seinen Organen (Leipzig, 1878) ; J. 
Freudenthal, Ueber den Begriff des Wortes <f>avTaaia bei Aristo- 
teles (Gottingen, 1867) ; Fr. Scheiboldt, De imaginatione dis- 
guisitio ex Arist. libris repetita (Leipzig, 1882) ; J. Ziaja, Die 
aristotelische Lehre vom (reddchtnis und von der Association der 
Vorstellungen (Leobschtitz, 1882). 

Aristotle's idea of single processes of perception is condi- 
tioned by the general principles of his philosophy of natural 
science, and is in many ways distinguished from that of his pre- 
decessors. The most important point in the theoretic part of 
his animal psychology is his insight into the synthetic character 
of perception, which is expressed in the hypothesis of the 
common-sense. Aristotle did not follow further the valuable 
thought that consciousness of activities, i. e., the inner percep- 
tion as distinguished from the objects of those activities, is 
rooted in this synthesis. In the doctrine of the association of 
ideas and in the distinction between voluntary and involuntary 
memory he scarcely advances beyond Plato. 

Next to the different grades of ideas, desire (6'peft?) is 
the second fundamental form of the activity of the animal 
soul. It originates in the feeling of pleasure or displeasure 
(yhv and \v7rrjp6v'), which is derived from the ideas so far 
as the content of these promises to fulfil a purpose or not. 
Therefore affirmation or negation results, which express 
the essence of the practical life of the soul in pursuit or 
in aversion (hicjotceiv — <f>evyeLv'). 2 In all cases, then, the idea 
of the agreeable is the cause of pleasure and desire, and vice 
versa. Desire, however, calls 3 forth teleological move- 

1 See the writing Trepi [xvr)ixr)s kcu dvafivrjo-eas. 

a De an., III. 7, 431 a, 15. 3 De mot. an., 7, 701 b, 7. 



ARISTOTLE 279 

ments of the organs through their warming or their cooling 
which follow physiologically from the intensity of the 
feelings of pleasure and displeasure. 

In the fundamental division into theoretical and practical x 
activities of souls, Aristotle associated feeling with the desire as 
a constant accompanying phenomenon. Yet he taught, on the 
other hand, entirely in the spirit of the Socratic psychology, that 
every desire presupposes the idea of its object as something of 
value. He represented indeed the genesis of desire as a con- 
clusion wherein the momentaiw content of the idea is subsumed 
under a more universal teleological thought. 2 The result is, 
then, affirmative or negative, as in a conclusion. It is, more- 
over, interesting that Aristotle identified the act of agreement 
or disagreement in the practical functions of feeling and desire 
exactly with the logical terms of affirmative and negative judg- 
ments (/<aTa</>ao-is and a7ro<£ao-is) . This showed in him, not only 
in his psychology but in his entire teaching, the characteristic 
tendency to subordinate the practical under the prevailing 
determinations of the theoretical. 

All these activities of animal souls constitute in man the 
material for the development of the Form peculiar to him, 
i. e., the reason (vovs). No longer a Form of the body, but 
rather of the soul, it is purely immaterial, is not to be con- 
fused with the body as a potentiality, and as mere Form it 
is simple, unchangeable, and incapable of suffering. 3 The 
vov<? does not originate with the body, as the animal func- 
tions of the soul originate. It enters from without 4 as 
a higher, godlike activity, and it therefore alone remains 
after the body has passed away. 5 

The fundamental activity of the soul is thought (hiavoelo- 
6ai)f and its object is those highest principles, in which 
the ultimate ground of all Being and knowing is immediately 
(dfjL€aa) conceived. Only in so far as the reasoning insight 

i This he also calls V p6s ; Pol, VII. 7, 1327 b, 40: see P. Meyer, 
6 flvfios apud Aristotelem Platonemque, Bonn, 1877. 

2 De mot. an., 7, 701 a, 8; Eth. Nic, VII. 5, 1147 a, 26. 

3 De an., III 4 . 429 a, 15. 4 De gen an., II. 3, 736 b, 27. 
5 De an., III. 5, 430 a, 23. 6 Ibid., III. 4, 429 a, 23. 



280 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

can become the cause of desire, is the reason also practi- 
cal. 1 This higher kind of 6pe%is is designated as fiovXrjo-L?. 
In the human individual, however, the reason is not pure 
Form but self-developing Form. Therefore we must again 
distinguish also in human reason between its potentiality 
and its actuality, between its passive material and its active 
Form. Therefore, although Aristotle designated 2 the vovs 
itself as 7tolovv, he contrasted it with its potentiality which 
is capable of being actualized, as the vovs iraQrjTiKos* 
This potentiality exists, however, in the theoretic func- 
tioning of animal souls, yet only so far as these functions 
can become in the human organism the occasion for 
reflection upon those highest and immediately certain 
principles. 3 Historical development of the reason in men 
is therefore this, — that through the persistence of sense 
impressions ^ovrj) 4 general notions arise (to irpwrov ev 
rfj -yjrvxv KadoXov), and these then form the entire occasion 
in the epagogic process for the knowledge of the actual 
reason appearing upon the original tabula rasa 5 of the vov<; 
TraOrjTiKos. The actualizing of the reason is dependent 
upon the physiological process of representation, and it 
remains so because the sensuous pictures are always asso- 
ciated also with the supersensible product of the thinking 
process. 6 

Jul. Wolf, De intellectu agente et patiente doctrina (Berlin, 
1844) ; W. Biehl, Ueber den JBegriff des vovs bei Aristoteles 
(Linz, 1864) ; F. Brentano, Die Psychologie des Aristoteles 
insbesondere seine Lehre vom vov? iroi-qriKos (Mainz, 1867) ; A. 
Bullinger, Aristoteles Nus-Lehre (Dillingen, 1884) ; E. Zeller, 

1 De an., III. 10, 433 a, 14. 2 Ibid., 5, 430 a, 12, 19. 

3 These functions man shares with the beast ; but among animals 
they are not instruments of the reason because the active principle of 
reason is wanting. This relation does away with the doubt raised by 
Zeller, IIP. 576 f. 

4 Anal, post., 11. 19, 99 b, 36. 5 De an., III. 4, 429 b, 31. 
6 Ibid. , 7, 431 a, 16. 



ARISTOTLE 281 

Ueber die Lelire des Aristoteles von der Ewigkeit des Geistes 
(SitzBer. der Bert. Ah., 1882). 

The difficulties of Aristotle's theory of the vovs lie first in the 
fact that the reason in our usual terminology is defined and 
treated as the peculiarity of the human soul, but it is thereby so 
restricted that it can fall no longer under the class concept of 
the soul as " the enteleclry of the body." With Aristotle the true 
relationship is rather this : that the vovs bears the relation to the 
human if/vxn (and in so far this is true of animal souls) as the 
animal ij/vxn bears to the body. 1 In some respect the distinction 
is the same in the German between Geist and Seele, and in the 
Middle Ages a similar distinction was made between spiritus 
or spiraculum and anima. Therefore the reason in itself is 
thought to be pure actuality, and to have no relation to the 
body, to come from without into the bod}- and to live after the 
body. Aristotle's "possibility" is, on the contrarj-, the animal 
\l/vxq ; and therefore the vovs -n-aO^TLKos 2 is also mortal (^Oapros) . 
On the other hand, the animal i/a>x?7 does not become the vovs 
7ra0r)Tii<6s until by the influence of the vovs iroi-qriKos upon it. In 
itself it is empty so far as reasoning knowledge goes, and only 
offers the occasion for the reasoning knowledge to actualize itself. 

On account of this the Aristotelian didactic writings leave in 
a very uncertain state the question of individual immortalit}', 
concerning which the commentators were in lively dispute even 
until the Renaissance. 3 For doubtless, according to the Aris- 
totelian definition of a concept, all those psychical contents 
which compose the essence of the individual belong to the vovs 
7ra6r)TLKos, which is destroyed with the body. Pure, universal 
rational knowledge of the vovs iroi-qriKos has remaining in it so 
little that is individual, that according to the characteristics that 
are ascribed to it — pure actuality, unchangeableness, and 
eternalness — a difference between it and the divine spirit can- 
not be made out. We cannot decide whether or by what method 
Aristotle tried to solve this problem. 

But, at any rate, his speculative psychology shows a strong 
dependence upon the Platonic, and particularly upon the form of 
Platonism in the Timceus. In both cases, to the distinction 
between a reasoning and an unreasoning part 4 of the soul there 

1 So the vovs in Aristotle is called a higher kind of soul: De an., II. 
2, 413 b, 26. 

2 Ibid., III. 5,430 a, 24. 

3 See Windelband, Gescli. der neueren Phil., I. (Leipzig, 1878), p. 15 f. 

4 Eth. Nic, I. 13, 1102 a, 27. There is also in Aristotle a vovs 
XupivTos : De an., III. 5, 430 a, 22. 



282 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

is added the postulate that the former is immortal and the latter 
is mortal with the body. 

The psycho-epistemological conception which Aristotle devel- 
oped concerning the temporal actualizing of the vovs in man, 
resembles, also, the Platonic conception. For if the epagogic 
processes of \kvt\pq and ifnrupta lead to the highest principles, 
whose certainty rests upon the immediate intuition of the vovs, 
if indeed the natural way from the irpor^pov -n-pbs ^uas to the -n-po- 
repov tt) cpvcrei does not include the grounding of the highest 
premises, but ultimately only the occasion for immediate intuition 
of the same to enter, — then this theory is only the development 
and refinement of the Platonic doctrine of avdfivrjo-Ls. 

The Siavoia, the knowledge which the reason possesses, has a 
theoretical and practical use (iTnorryj^oviKov and Xoyta-riKov). 1 The 
former as Oewpia leads to bna-rrifint the latter as cppovrjcns to rix vy ]' 
But it is also true that the practical reason in itself is only a 
theoretic activity, an insight into the right principles of action. 
Whether the individual shall follow that knowledge or not 
depends upon his free choice. 

L. Schneider, Die TJnsterolicKkeitslehre des Aristoteles (Pas- 
sau, 1867) ; K. Schlottmann, Das Vergangliche und JJnver- 
gangliche in der menschlichen Seele nach Aristoteles (Halle, 
1873) ; W. Schrader, Aristotle de voluntate doctrina (Branden- 
burg, 1847) ; J. Walter, Die Lehre von der praktischen Vernanft 
in der griechischen Philosophie (Jena, 1874). 

43. Furthermore, the practical philosophy of Aristotle 
was built up on these universal theoretic principles. The 
goal of every human action is a Good, to be realized by 
activity QirpatcTov a^aQov). Yet this goal is only a means 
to the highest goal, Happiness, on account of which all else 
is desired. To perfect evhaifiovia belongs also the possession 
of the goods of the body, of the outer world, and of success ; 
but since these are only accessories, their lack will only give 
a certain limitation 2 to the amount of happiness. The 
essential condition of happiness, on the contrary, is activ- 
ity, and indeed, the activity peculiar to man ; that is, it is 
that of reason. 3 

Now the state (eft?) 4 which renders possible to man the 

1 Eth. Nic.y VI. 2, 1139 a, 11. 2 Ibid., VII. 14, 1153 b, 17. 
3 Ibid. y I. 6, 1097 b, 24. * Ibid., II. 4, 1106 b, 11. 



ARISTOTLE 283 

perfect use of his peculiar activity is virtue. Virtue has in 
certain bodily qualities its natural aptitude, out of which it 
is developed 2 only by use of the reason. From the exercise 
of virtue, pleasure 2 follows as a necessary result of perfect 
activity. 

/"The problem of the reason is twofold : first, it is concerned 
with knowledge ; secondly, with the direction of desire and 
action through knowledge. In this way, Aristotle distin- 
guished between the dianoetic and ethical virtues. 3 The 
former are higher. They unfold the pure formal activity 
of the vovs, and give the most noble and perfect pleasure. 
The human being finds in them his possible participation 
in the divine blessedness. 

K. L. Michelet, Die Ethik des Aristoteles (Berlin, 1827) ; G-. 
Hartenstein, Ueber den wissenschaftlichen Wert der aristotelischen 
Ethik (in Hist.^philos. Abhandl, Leipzig, 1870); R. Eucken, Ueber 
die Methode und die Grundlagen der aristotelischen Ethik 
(Frankfort a. M., 1870); P. Paul, An Analysis of Aristotle's 
Ethics (London, 1874) ; A. Olle-laprune, De Aristoteleai ethices 
fundamento (Paris, 1880). Concerning the Highest Good, 
G. Teichmiiller, Die Einheit der aristotelischen Euddmonie 
(in Bulletin de la classe des sciences hist., etc., de V academic de 
/St. Petersbourg, XVI. 305 ff.). Concerning dianoetic virtues, 
see C. Prantl (Mlinchen, 1852, Gluckw.-schr. an Thiersch) and 
A. Kuhn (Berlin, 1860). 

The sense for what is actual, the thoroughgoing investigation 
of facts, and the inclination to bring qualitative distinctions to 
the same touchstone, are shown in the practical philosophy of 
Aristotle perhaps more than in his theoretical philosophy. The 
Nicomachsean ethics definitely refused to take its point of de- 
parture from the abstract Idea of the Good, adopting in its stead 
the Good so far as it is an object of human activity (I. 1, 1094 a, 
19). In the determination of the concept of happiness, also, 
which to him was obviously the highest good, he included the 
possession of material wealth and good fortune, although alwa} r s 
subordinated to the exercise of the reason, if the reason is to 
reach complete and untrammelled development. Only this 
potential value justifies the consideration of earthly good in ethics. 

i Eth. Nic., VI. 13, 1144b, 4. 2 Ibid., X. 4, 1174b, 31. 
8 Ibid., I. 13, 1103 a, 2. 



284 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

The dialectic that had been developed by Socrates upon the 
question of the relation of pleasure and virtue was completed 
with exalted simplicity by Aristotle ; for he taught, in antago- 
nism to the one=sided doctrines, that pleasure is never the motive, 
but always the result of virtue. Therefore, also, the activity of 
the reason unfolding itself in virtue is always the measure of the 
worth of the different pleasures (Eth. Mc, X. 3. ff.). 

In respect to the psychological characterization of virtue, 
Aristotle laid weight upon its conception as a continuous con- 
dition and not as a single state. On the other hand, he found a 
Svvafiis for it in bodily qualities, such as the characteristics of 
the natural disposition, temperament, inclination, and feelings. 
These are also in children and animals, but they are not there 
under the rule of the reason. 

The dianoetic virtues are related to theoretical as well as to 
practical insight. The latter is either rix v l as the knowledge of 
the right, requisite for artistic creation, or ^poV^o-ts as the recog- 
nition of justice, which recognition is necessary for activity in 
public or private life {Eth. Nic, VI. 5 ff.). The 4>p6vr}o-ts is 
also split into (1) o-weo-is, the understanding of objects and rela- 
tions which are the cause of its activity, and (2) eu/?oA.ia, the 
knowledge of teleological processes. The aocpta is of more value, 
for it is the knowledge having no ulterior purpose, but sought on 
account of itself. Its content is highest actuality and first prin- 
ciples. Its application to single sciences and departments is 
iTTLo-TrjfjLr) ; its knowledge of itself is Stdvota, or the vovs as pure 
Form. It is that Oeojpta, in which the highest happiness con- 
sists (Met., XL 7, 1072 b, 24 ; see Eth. Mc., X. 7, 1177 a, 13), 
and this makes the perfectness of God : rj Oaapia to rjhto-rov koI 
apio-Tov. This is ethically, as well as metaphysically, the funda- 
mental principle of the philosophy of Aristotle. It is rooted in 
his personality : and is the expression of that pure joy in knowl- 
edge that forms the basis of all science and is the absolute con- 
dition of the independence of science. In the logic of Aristotle 
Greek science recognized and formulated its essence, and in his 
ethics its practicability. 

As the dianoetic virtues have their seat in the intellect, 
the ethical virtues have theirs in the will. Rational 
insight, as experience teaches us, is not alone sufficient for 
right action, but there must be added to it the strength of 
the will (eyfcpdreia), 1 in order to give the insight validity 

1 Not reckoned among the virtues : Eth. Nic, IV. 15, 1128 b, 33. 



ARISTOTLE 285 

in contrast to the affections and desires. 1 This is only pos- 
sible by the will choosing freely what it knows to be good. 

Ethical virtue is, then, that continuing state of the will by 
means of which practical reason rules the desires. Besides 
disposition and insight, virtue also needs for its develop- 
ment exercise, 2 because the direction of the will must be 
established through habit. The rjOos is developed out of 
the £005. 

The control of the desires by the reason consists in the 
right mean being chosen 3 between the extremes, toward 
which uncurbed desires press. It is the task of practical 
insight to recognize this right mean in individual rela- 
tions by using our knowledge of objects and of human 
nature ; and it is the business of virtue to act according 
to this insight (o/?0o5 X0705). 

Out of this principle Aristotle developed from his 
accurate knowledge of the world and human kind the 
single ethical virtues in a rising series, which seem 4 not to 
have been systematically grounded, articulated, or deline- 
ated. The purely Greek fundamental principle in it is 
that of the value of moderation. 

A. Trendelenburg, Das Ebenmass, ein Band der Verwandt- 
schaft zwischen griechischen Archaologie und griechischen 
Philosophie (Berlin, 1865). 

Although Aristotle regarded right insight as the conditio 
sine qua non of right action, yet he was still conscious that it is, 
after all, the province of the will to follow right insight, and that 
the will has the power of doing the wrong thing contrary to right 
insight. It is for us to say (ec/> 5 rj^uv) whether we wish to act 
well or ill. The investigation concerning freedom that Aristotle 
made (Eth. iV?c., III. 1-8) directs itself indeed against the 
Socratic intellectualism, and views the question essentially from 

1 See the polemic against the Socratic doctrine, Etli. Nic, VII. 3 ff. 

2 Ibid., II. 1, 1103 a, 24. 3 Ibid., 5, 1106 a, 28. 

4 See, nevertheless, F. Hacker, Das Einteilungs- und Anordnungs- 
prinzip der moralischen Tugendreihe in der nikomachischen Ethik (Berlin, 
1863); Th. Ziegler, Gesch. der Ethik, I. 116. 



286 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

the point of responsibility. 1 The question is, how far a human 
being can be regarded as the dpxrj of his own activity. 2 This 
freedom is annulled through ignorance of the facts and through 
external force. The irpoaiptaLs is essential to it, which is the 
decision through choice between contemplated possibilities. 

The dogmatic completeness which characterized the Platonic 
ethics was not reached by Aristotle's system. Aristotle made 
amends for it by his deep rational insight into the manifold 
relations of life. The virtues treated by him are : courage 
(di/Speta), as the mean between fear and daring; temperance 
(o-wcfipoo-vvr]) , between intemperance and insensibleness ; liberal- 
ity (ZXevOepioTrjs), and in larger relationships magnificence 
(^eyaAoTrpeVeia), between stinginess and prodigality; high-mind- 
edness (peyaXoif/vxia) , and in affairs of less importance ambi- 
tion, between vaingloriousness and self-abasement ; mildness 
(7rpaor7/9), between irascibility and indifference; friendliness 
(also called cpuXia) , between obsequiousness and brusqueness ; 
candor (dA^cta), between boastf ulness and dissembling ; ur- 
banity (evT/oa7reAeia), between trifling and moroseness ; 3 finally, 
justice (SiKaLoa-vvrj) , which consists in recognizing the rights of 
men neither too much nor too little. The philosopher gives an 
exhaustive treatment of justice (Eth. Nic, V.), on the one hand 
because in a certain sense it comprehends 4 in itself all the 
virtues in respect to our fellows, on the other because it is the 
foundation of the political life of society. Its fundamental 
principle is equality, 5 — either the proportional equality of merit 
or the absolute equality of legal rights. Therefore Aristotle 
distinguished distributive justice (to iv Tat? Sixtvo/iaU or to 
Siavefx^TLKov Si'kcuov), and commutative justice (to iv rot? o-vvaW&y- 
fiao-L or to foopOuiTLKov StKaiov). 6 Both investigations led to inter- 
esting details of political economy and political law. 

1 With express reference indeed to criminal law, Eth. Nic, III. 1, 
1109 b, 34. Metaphysical aporia from freedom of the will are not yet 
considered in this connection ; and only once in connection with the law 
of the excluded third term : Be interpr., 9, 18 b, 31. 

2 Eth. Nic, III. 5, 1112 b, 31 ; 3, 1111 a, 73. 

3 Also shame (al&as) and sympathy are mentioned by Aristotle in 
this series, but they indicate excellences of temperament (Eth. Nic, II. 
7, 1108 a, 32); in other words, (pvo-tKai dpeTai. 

* Ibid., V. 3, 1129 b, 17. 5 IMd., 5, 1130 b, 9. 

6 Wherever the latter legally carried out would not satisfy the ethical 
need, and where the former takes its place, there reigns the virtue of 
fair-mindedness (to emeiiees). 



ARISTOTLE 287 

A principle in this series of virtues is to be found only in its 
content, since the formal mean (fieo-orrjs) is everywhere the same. 
The principle consists in the gradual advance from the individual 
relations toward the social relations and among the latter, from 
the external to the more spiritual relations of life. At the be- 
ginning stands courage, the virtue of self-preservation of the 
individual ; at the end justice, the ethical basis of the state. 

Finally, the beautiful representation of friendship, whose ideal 
the philosopher found in the common striving for the beautiful 
and good (^iXta) 1 forms a transition to the treatment of social 
life. He applied this standard to some similar relations of 
friendship, to conventional and unconventional social relations, 
raising the latter from their utilitarian origin to means for 
ethical ennoblement. The same obtains also in regard to the 
state. See R. Eucken, Aristoteles' Anschauung von Freund- 
schaft und Lebensgutern (Berlin, 1884) ; also Aristoteles' Urteil 
iiber die Menschen (Arch./. Gesch. d. Ph., III. 541 ff.). 

Man, however, who is designed by nature (tSov ttoXl- 
tlkov) 2 as an essentially social being, can perfect his 
activity only in communal life. The natural and funda- 
mental form of society is the family (ol/eia) ; the most 
perfect, however, is the state. Since the ethical virtues of 
man can develop perfectly 3 only in the life of the state, so 
also, although the state arose 4 out of the needs of utility, 
the state is essentially and theoretically the actualization of 
the highest good of the active man (rduOpcoirivov dyadov). 

This idea seemed so important to Aristotle that in the begin- 
ning of his Ethics he designated the whole of practical philos- 
ophy as TroXiTiKrj, 5 which is divided into the theory of the con- 
duct of the individual (Ethics) and the theory of the conduct 
of the whole (Politics). The relationship is not to be so con- 
ceived as if ethics set up an ideal of perfect individuality, 
and as if politics then showed how this ideal was developed by 
society. But as the whole is more valuable and essentially 

1 Eth. Nic, VIII. f. 2 p i^ i. 2 , 1253 a, 3. 

3 In the treatment of friendship, Aristotle used frequently the ex- 
pression crv£rjv. See Eth. Nic, IX. 12, 1171 b, 32. 

4 See conclusion of Ethics and beginning of Politics. 

5 Which he also called philosophical anthropology (fj nejA to. dvOpumva 
(j>iko<ro<pia) in Eth. Nic, X. 10, 1181 b, 15. 



288 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

earlier than the parts, so also a man as an active being attains 
in social life a more perfect actuality than in isolation (Mh. 
Nic., I. 1, 1094 b, 7). 

Aristotle agreed with Plato and the author of the dialogue, 
Politicus, in the ethico-teleological conception of the life of 
the state. But he was thinking here, as in general, not of 
the transcendent, but the immanent teleology. His state is 
no form of government of superhuman beings, but the perfection 
of the earthly life, the full actualization of the natural dis- 
position of man. On the other hand, Aristotle was far from 
letting man be swallowed up in the state, as was the case with 
Plato. The individual's participation in the divine holiness of 
the Oeojpta remains his independent enjoyment, even if he must 
be guided by social education to dianoetic and ethical virtue. 
While subordinating the citizen to the community, Aristotle 
nevertheless gave to him in private life 1 a very much greater 
circle of independent activity, since he expressly contended 
against the Platonic conception 2 of a community of wives, 
children, and propeity. So his theory of the state held the 
happy mean between the socialism of Plato and the individual- 
ism of other schools, and it became thereby the ideal expression 
of Greek life. 

Aristotle gave the same relative independence also to the 
family, the natural communit}^ upon which the state is built. 
The family is the prototype of the political forms in its relation- 
ships of man to wife, parents to children, and to slaves. 3 The 
conception of marriage reached a height in Aristotle which 
antiquity did not surpass. He saw in it an ethical relation- 
ship between peers in which only from natural disposition 
the man is the determining, the wife the determined element. 
Slavery, which he desired to treat in all humaneness, is an in- 
dispensable groundwork for family and political life. He justi- 
fied it — feeling its practical importance for Greece — because 
only through it the good of leisure (o-xoAtJ) 4 is made possible for 
the citizen, and this leisure is a condition necessary to the exer- 
cise of virtue. He also was of the opinion that natural dis- 
position has predetermined one man as slave, another as free 
citizen. 

See W. Oncken, Die Staatslehre des AHstoteles (Leipzig, 

1 He said emphatically that the state consists in individuals that are 
in some respects like and in others unlike. Politics, IV. 11, 1295 a, 25. 

2 Ibid., II. 2 ft. 

3 Eth. Nic, VIII. 12, 1160 b, 22. 

4 Concerning the word "leisure," see Ibid., X. 7, 1177b, 4. 



ARISTOTLE 289 

1870) ; C. Bradley, The Politics of Aristotle (Berlin, 1884) ; P. 
Janet, Histoire de la science politique (Paris, 1887), I. 165 ff. 

The living and perfected virtue of all its citizens is the 
final purpose of the state. For the realization J of this 
purpose we must take the material at hand ; viz., a natural, 
historical and concrete society in a particular environment. 
Although it is impossible to fix upon a valid norm for the 
constitution of all states, nevertheless under all circum- 
stances the actual constitution must be measured by the 
general purpose of the state, and its worth will be assessed 
according to its sufficiency {opOrf) and deficiency (fifiaprr)- 
fievrj'). The political constitution is an arrangement in 
which the rule is in the hands of a justly ordained power. 
Therefore the worth of a state depends on the ruling 
power keeping the purpose of the state (rb koivov <tv/jl- 
fyepov) in view. Since the rule may be in the hands of 
the one or the few or the many, there are 2 six possible 
forms of political constitutions, — three good and three 
that are deficient. The former three are monarchy ( /3a- 
o-iXela), aristocracy, and " polity " {iroXirela) ; 3 the latter 
three are despotism (t^aw/?), oligarchy, and democracy 
(STj/jLOfcpaTLa).* With the fine analysis of an observing 
statesman, Aristotle investigated the essential principles of 
these different forms, their conditions, their rise, their fall, 
and their legitimate transmutation one into another. With 
the firm hand of a philosopher he drew his estimate of 
these various forms after the " concept " of a state. 

i Pol., VII. 4, 1325 b, 35. 

2 Aristotle changed the somewhat external principle of division of 
the number of rulers (Ibid., III. 17, 1287 b, 37) by considerations about 
the character of the different peoples. 

8 Ibid., 7, 1279 a, 25. 

4 What Aristotle here calls 7roXireta in the narrower sense was later 
known as democracy (drj/jLOKpaTia). Polybius has a better name for the 
Aristotelian democracy, which is o^Ao/cpa-Tia. 

19 



290 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

Among the good constitutions, monarchy and aristocracy 
are the most perfect, since they are the rule of the best 
man or men, ethically speaking. Of these, monarchy 
would be preferred if we could hope that it would ever 
correspond entirely to its concept ; that is, to the rule of 
one man who surpasses all others in virtue. 1 In reality 
the aristocracy offers greater guarantees. Among the 
degenerate kinds of constitutions, the rule of the masses 
is always less unendurable, that of tyranny the most 
abominable. 

Under the presupposition of fulfilling all conditions which 
were demanded for realizing the political ideal, the idea of 
the best state was delineated, whose development Aristotle 
began but did not complete. 2 The best state must have the 
fundamental form of " polity " at least, but the administra- 
tion of public affairs must, as in the aristocracy, be in the 
hands 3 of the virtuous. It would be a state of peace and 
not of war, 4 and its chief task would be the correct educa- 
tion of all its citizens. The citizens would not only be 
efficient in practical affairs, but they would 5 also be sen- 
sible to beauty and finally capable of the highest enjoyment, 
that is, of that which attends knowledge. 

The incompleteness of the Aristotelian writings is perhaps 
nowhere so much to be regretted as in the Politics. The torso 
of this work shows a wonderful thoroughness, a philosophical 
penetration of all the political conditions of Hellenic history, 
the clearest understanding of the limitations and the develop- 
ments of political life. These excellences make all the more 
keen our regret that the ideal picture of the state, based on 
what he has given, was only proposed and not developed. In 

* Pol., V. 10, 1310 b, 31. 2 IUd ^ vii. 4 g. 

8 Aristotle distinguished — in a manner not entirely consistent to 
the new theory of the three kinds of power, but yet with an approximate 
suitability — to ftovXevopevov irepi t£>v koivohv, to irepl ras ap^as, to 8iicd£ov 
{Ibid., IV. 14, 1297 b, 41). 

4 Ibid., VII. 14 f. 5 IUd VIII. 2 f 



ARISTOTLE 291 

the same way the theory of eduction of Aristotle comes to an 
abrupt end after a sketch of the elementaiy principles of educa- 
tion, suggesting man}' valuable points of view. It put forth in a 
clear way that all sesthetical training is to bring about the 
ethical and theoretical unfolding of what is essentially human. 

With Aristotle's practical philosophy is connected the 
Poetics, the science of the creative activity of man. But 
in the preserved writings, this science is developed only on 
the side of beauty in fine art, and particularly in reference 
to poetry in the Poetics. 

J. Bernays, Zwei Abhandlungen uber die aristotelische Theorie 
des Dramas (Berlin, 1880) ; A. Doring, Die Kunstlehre des 
Aristoteles (Jena, 1876) ; the details of a rich bibliography are 
found in Doring, p. 263 ff. ; Ueberweg-Heinze, l 7 . 225. 

All art is imitation, and the different arts are to be dis- 
tinguished partly by their media, partly by the objects to be 
imitated. 1 The media of poetry are words, rhythm, and har- 
mony. 2 The objects of poetry are men and their conduct, 
good or bad. 3 Tragedy, to whose analysis the preserved 
fragment on poetry is essentially limited, presents directly 
to the spectator in beautiful language a significant and 
complete action through its different characters. 4 

The purpose of art, however, is to arouse the emotions of 
man in such a way that he may be freed and purified (/ea- 
Oapais) from their power — precisely through their arousal 
and intensification. This is possible only when art presents, 
not the empirically actual, but that which could be in itself 
possible, — so presenting it that it raises the object into 
universality. 

i Poet., 1 f. 2 Ibid., 7, 1447 a, 22. 3 Ibid., 2 f. 

4 The celebrated and much discussed definition of tragedy is (Ibid., 
6, 1449 b, 24) : eoriv ovv rpaycobia p.lpr]ais n pd^ecos cnrovhaias km reXeias, 
fxeycOos ex ^ a V s ^ rjSvo-pevco Xoyw, ^copis e/caaTou to>v eldatv ev rots popiois, 
hpoiVT(ov /cat ov di dirayyeXias, $i eXeov /cat (poftov 7T€paivovara rfjU t&v 
toiovtcov 7ra6r)p,aTcov Kadapcriv. 



292 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

The ethical result of tragedy, the purification of the passions, 
whether the KaOapo-is is used in religious, medical, or other 
analogy, goes accordingly hand in hand with its intellectual 
significance. Art, like philosophy, presents the actual in its 
ideal purity {Poetics, 9, 1451 b, 5), and is more than the mere 
facsimile of individual facts, as the la-ropta presents them. This 
conception of the universal significance annuls the emotions of 
fear and sympathy through which tragedy has to operate. 

The long strife over the meaning of the Aristotelian definition 
of tragedy has gradually resolved itself into the belief that 
the healthiness which this KaOapais brings with it rests upon 
this idealizing of the aesthetic result, — upon an exaltation to 
immediate knowledge of the universal. 

Thus Aristotle fulfilled upon this territory, in contrast to the 
greatest poetic performances of his nation, the task of its 
philosophy, which is no other than the attainment of the self- 
consciousness of Hellenic culture. 



HELLENIC-ROMAN PHILOSOPHY 293 



B. HELLENIC-ROMAN PHILOSOPHY 

44. If in the philosophy of Aristotle the essence of Greek 
civilization was reduced to conceptual expression, yet it 
appeared when the sun of Greece was setting. The philos- 
ophy of Aristotle was the legacy of dying Greece to the 
following generations of man. 

The spiritual decay of the Grecian civilization at the time 
of its Enlightenment had advanced in ever- widening circles, 
and from then on led to its external destruction. Already, 
since the conclusion of the Peloponnesian war, which de- 
stroyed forever the vitality of Athens, the centre of Greek 
culture, the influence of the Persian power in the politics 
of Greece had been dominant. Moreover, out of this 
lamentable situation Greece got freedom only through 
subjection to the Macedonian kingdom. Likewise in 
the succeeding time Greece in intermittent and inconse- 
quential movements could only occasionally stagger to an 
independence amid the vicissitudes of the Hellenic king- 
doms, especially of Macedonia. Finally, however, it 
entirely lost its political independence by its being incor- 
porated into the Roman Empire, in order to save here and 
there a wretched respectability. 

But precisely through its political decadence Greece ful- 
filled in a higher sense the problems of its civilization. 
The kingly pupil of the ripest Greek philosopher had 
borne the victorious Greek spirit into the far East with 
his conquering arms. In the enormous mingling of the 
peoples, which was begun by his campaign of conquest and 
furthered by the varying battles of his successors, did 
Greek culture become the common possession of the ancient 
world, and finally the commanding spirit of the Roman 
Empire, and the eternal possession of humanity. 

After the creative period of Greek philosophy there fol- 



294 HISTORY OP ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

lowed, therefore, centuries of criticism, appropriation, 
readjustment, and remodelling. This second section of the 
history of ancient thought is incomparably much poorer in 
content, although covering a longer period of time. Every 
conceptual principle for comprehending and judging reality 
had been presented by Greek science in its youthful in- 
spiration. There only remained for the epigones to see 
their way clearly in their variously animated world, to 
employ the previously discovered points of view in every 
possible way, to combine the inherited thought, and to 
make this combination fruitful for the purposes of the new 
situations of life. 

The very little originality which the Hellenic-Roman philoso- 
phy shows in contrast to Greek philosophy is true even of neo- 
Platonism, its most significant intellectual phenomenon. In 
all the independence which its religious principle seemed to 
give to it, neo-Platonism remained inextricably bound to the 
thought of Plato and Aristotle. 

'From the critical 'point of view, which is the authority for 
the divisions of this survey, Hellenic-Roman philosophy appears 
to be only a gleaning of Greek philosophy. It is only the 
"after-effects" (Prandis) of Greek philosophy in the Hellenic 
and Roman realms. Among these after-effects the great 
systems of Stoicism and Epicureanism are to be reckoned, not 
only because they took root and blossomed in those times 
when the divisions between Greek and barbarian began to 
break down, but especially also for these two reasons : (1) be- 
cause they, though with great refinement in details, represented 
in general only a new distortion of the old principles which 
the original development of Greek thought, until Aristotle, had 
gained ; (.2) because they made this distortion in a typical 
manner from the new points of view of individual practical 
wisdom. 

On the whole, the second section of this history is less im- 
portant to philosophy than to the history of # civilization and 
literature. This is a natural result of the fact that in this 
period the literary sources, although very far from pure, are 
nevertheless very much richer. Therefore on this account this 
period is extraordinarily rich in interesting, difficult, and various 
problems still unsolved, although its product of philosophical 
principles and fundamental concepts is relatively small. 



HELLENIC-ROMAN PHILOSOPHY 295 

With this relative deficiency in originality we note the 
appearance in the post- Aristotelian philosophy of the great 
school-associations, with their wholesale scientific produc- 
tions, rather than of single personalities. It is true, detailed 
research also here betrays individual shadings in the con- 
struction of single theories, although often indeed seen 
with difficulty and not with full certainty ; yet such varia- 
tions stand in value and significance far behind the 
great and general antagonisms of the school systems. 
Moreover, such antagonisms are much less those of 
scientific theory than those of the conception of life and 
its conduct. 

The post- Aristotelian philosophy showed, therefore, the 
peculiar phenomenon of the practical convictions of differ- 
ent schools existing in sharp conflict, while the peculiar 
scientific differences became gradually obliterated. Scien- 
tific activity was turned to special researches, and found 
neutral ground partly in nature studies, partly in history, 
especially the history of literature. Upon this neutral 
ground, although with a certain agreement in fundamental 
conceptions and methods, the representatives of the differ- 
ent schools were in active rivalry. This ardent cultivation 
of the special sciences had the most universal results of 
Greek philosophy for its obviously valid fundamental prin- 
ciples, and interest in metaphysical problems passed more 
and more into the background. Erudition pressed out 
the spirit of speculation. The special sciences became 
independent. 

The beginning of this specialization in science already existed 
in the Abderite, the Platonic, and particularly the Aristotelian 
schools. In the Hellenic period specialization was, however, 
the more remarkable because the period was wanting in great 
determining personalities and organizing fundamental prin- 
ciples. This popular impulse for specialization was limited 
neither to Athens nor to Greece. Rhodes, Alexandria, Per- 
gamus, Antioch, Tarsus, etc., became scientific centres, in 



296 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

which scholarly work by means of great libraries and collections 
was being s}'stematically carried on. Later Rome, and finally 
also Byzantium, entered into the competition. 

That now, however, the conflict between the schools was 
no longer waged over theoretical but practical philosophy, 
was due not only to the fact that Aristotle had given the 
final word to the speculative movement, but also to the 
changing character of the times and the changing philo- 
sophical demands. The more the Greek national life and 
spirit faded through the universal mixing of nations and 
their destinies, so much the more the individual retired 
within himself and away from the changing external 
world. From the great maelstrom of things he sought to 
save as much as possible of inward peace of mind and sure 
happiness, and to secure them within the quiet of his in- 
dividual life. This, then, in Hellenic time is what was 
expected from philosophy : it should be the director of life ; 
it should teach the individual how to be free from the 
world and to stand independent by himself. The deter- 
mining, fundamental point of view of philosophy became 
that of practical wisdom. 

The Greek Enlightenment showed tendencies in this direction 
in the teachings of Socrates, especially, however, in the teachings 
of the Cynics and Cyrenaics, which expressed through their atom- 
istic principles the dismemberment of Greek society (see § 29 f.). 
Opposed to this the great systems of Greek science, especially 
Platonism and Aristotelianism, had maintained the higher thought 
with the essential political tendency of their ethics. The post- 
Aristotelian philosoplvy even in the schools of both masters 
turned to the ethics of the individual. The antagonisms that 
developed between them concerned fundamentally only their 
subtleties and the enriched developments of the simple types 
which Greek life in its bloom had brought forth. 

While then the essence of Greek philosophy was exclusively 
directed to a unified conceptual knowledge of the world, the 
science of the succeeding centuries divided (1) into specializa- 
tion into single branches, for which methodical bases had been 
established ; and (2) into a philosophy which made all knowl- 



HELLENIC-ROMAN PHILOSOPHY 297 

edge an ancillaiw maiden to the art of living, and was concerned 
entirely in setting up an ideal of a perfect, free, and happy 
man. This art of living still retained the name of philosophy, 
and it is only this side of the scientific life of antiquity which 
is to be followed out further in this place. 1 

Individualistic ethics, which the post-Aristotelian schools 
made the burden of their philosophy, was virtually called to 
restore to the cultured world of antiquity the religion lost 
in the Greek Renaissance. Its fundamental problem 2 was 
on this account the release of man from the power of the 
outer world and the vicissitudes of life. But virtue, as the 
Stoics and Epicureans taught it, did not prove adequate to 
be the solution of this problem ; thus philosophy also be- 
came drawn into the great religious movement which had 
possessed the races of the Roman Empire. In that move- 
ment the terrified mind seized upon all kinds of religious 
forms and cults, and eagerly pressed on to a saving con- 
viction. The more this tendency became predominant in 
philosophy, and the more philosophical interest passed from 
ethics to religion, so much the more did Platonism, the 
specific religious form of philosophy, come into the fore- 
ground. Its transcendent metaphysics, its separation of 
the material and immaterial worlds, its teleological prin- 
ciple, which regarded the life of nature and man with 
reference to a divine cosmic purpose, made it seem called 
to give scientific form to the amalgamation of religions. 
Its concept of the world was equal to absorbing the reli- 
gious forms of the Orient. It gave the philosophic material 
with which Christianity, the new religion, constituted itself 
into a didactic system. Out of it the Hellenic world tried, 
finally, to create its own religion as the daughter of science. 

1 For the development of the special sciences since Aristotle one 
should consult the respective parts of this manual. 

2 See K. Fischer, Gesch. der neueren Philos., I. (2 ed., Mannheim, 
1865), p. 33 f. 



298 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

This gradual transmutation of ethics into religion divided 
the Hellenic-Roman philosophy into two parts (see above, 
Introduction) ; in the former of which the ethical interest 
predominated; in the latter, the religious interest ; Syncretic 
Platonism made the transition. The controversies between 
the schools and their adjustment in Skepticism and Eclecti- 
cism, preceded the transition period. Patristics on the 
one hand, and neo-Platonism on the other came after this 
transition. 

1. The Controversies of the Schools. 

45. The development of the Peripatetic school took a 
similar course to that of the Academy (§ 38). It had in 
fact, at first, its significant centre in the person of the old 
friend and coadjutor of its founder; to wit, in Theophrastus. 
Theophrastus knew how to direct the activities of the school, 
how to inspire the development of the sciences in the true 
spirit of the master, and how to give to the Lyceum- an 
eminent position in the intellectual life of Athens through 
the brilliancy of his lectures. Yet for him in his recasting 
and supplementation of the Aristotelian doctrine, and also 
for the majority of his associates, the empirical outweighed 
the philosophical interest, and so more and more the school 
tended to the specialization of scientific work. Thus Theo- 
phrastus developed the science of botany especially ; Aris- 
toxenus,the theory of music; Dicaearchus, historical sciences. 
History seems to have taken the most space in the scien- 
tific work of the school. Literary-historical and scientific- 
historical work were especially carried on in this and the 
succeeding generations of the Peripatetic school, and to 
such a degree that this school is designated as the unique 
centre of the above very learned but little creative spirit. 

The ethical questions, also, were treated by all these men, 
and especially by Eudemus, more particularly upon their 



CONTROVERSIES OF THE SCHOOLS 299 

empirical side and with reference to popular morality. On 
the other hand, however, the ethical questions were sub- 
ordinated to a theological interest, in which metaphysical 
demands seem to have been centred. Influenced doubtless 
by Platonic and Pythagorean doctrines, Eudemus inclined 
to emphasize the transcendence of the divine Being, and in 
a similar manner to maintain the speculative psychology of 
Aristotle with the transcendence (^aj/3icryLt6?) of the reason. 
There was another tendency, which, beginning with The- 
ophrastus, ran counter to the above, and developed the 
principle of immanence, both metaphysically and psycho- 
logically. This tendency grew to a thoroughgoing pan- 
theism and naturalism in the person of Strato, who from 
287 to 269 followed Theophrastus as head of the school. 

When Strato explained the concept of pure Form meta- 
physically and psychologically as unnecessary and equally 
as impossible as that of pure matter, he practically identified 
God and the world on the one hand, and on the other 
thought and perception. The whole world-system and all 
particular events therein are only explainable by the quali- 
ties and forces in things under the law of mechanical 
necessity. Warmth is the most important force among 
these, both in the macrocosm and in the microcosm. The 
soul is the unifying reasoning power (fyefioviicov), and it 
has the senses as its organs. Thus the activity of sensa- 
tion is never complete without thought. Thought, however, 
on its side is limited to the given perceptual content. 

The theory of Strato seems to be, on the whole, a victory 
for the Democritan element that was in the Aristotelian 
doctrine, although in particular assertions Strato approaches 
very near the Stoic philosophy. 

W. Lyngg, Die peripatetische Schule (in Philosophische 
Studien, Christiania, 1878) ; H. Siebeck, Die Umbildung der 
peripatetischen Naturphilosophie in die der Stoiker (Unters. 
z. Philos. d. Or., 2 ed., 181-252). 



300 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

Theophrastus, from Eresus in Lesbos, was about twelve years 
younger than Aristotle. He probably got acquainted * with 
Aristotle in the Academy, and he remained a lifelong friend to 
the Stagirite. He shared the residence of Aristotle after the 
latter bade adieu to the Macedonian court, and was his right- 
hand man in the administration of the Lyceum. Theophrastus 
afterwards assumed the conduct of the Lyceum himself, and 
directed it with the greatest success. An attempt to drive the 
philosophical schools out of Athens (306 b. c.) seems to have 
failed solely by reason of the respect in which he was held 
(F. A. Hoffmann, De lege contra philosophos imprimis The- 
ophrastum auctore Sophocle Athenis lata, Carlsruhe, 1842). 
There have been preserved of his numerous works (list in Diog. 
Laert., V. 42 ff.) the two botanical works, 7repl <£tjtwv lo-Toptas 
and irepl cf>vr<hv aiTtwv, — of the greatest importance, since the 
corresponding works of Aristotle are lost, — certain fragments 
of his metaphysics, of the history of physics, besides some 
minor treatises. The tjOlkoI x a P aKr W*s, a description of moral 
failings based on many observations, are a selection from the 
ethical work of this philosopher. These are published by J. G. 
Schneider (Leipzig, 1818) ; Fr. Wimmer (Breslau, 1842-62) ; 
a portion of the metaphysics in Chr. Brandis' Separat-ausgabe 
der aristotelischen (Berlin, 1823), p. 308 ff. ; also newly published 
by H. Usener (Bonn, 1890) ; Characters, Diibner (Paris, 
1842) and E. Petersen (Leip., 1859) ; Philippson, vXrj avOpwTrivq 
(Berlin, 1831) ; H. Usener, Analecta Theophrastea (Bonn, 
1858) ; the same in XVI. volume of Hhein. Mus.; Jac. Bernays, 
Th.'s Schrift uber die Frommigkeit (Berlin, 1866) ; H. Diels, 
Dox. Gr., p. 475 ff. ; E. Meyer, Gesch. der Botanik, p. 164 ff. ; 
Th. Gomperz, Ueber die Charactere Th.'s (Wiener Sitz.-Ber., 
Berlin, 1888). 

The naturalism of Theophrastus seems to be expressed in his 
subsumption of thought under that of motion (/aV^o-is), although 
he did not materialize the concept in the Democritan manner. 
The dubious consequences, that followed for the Aristotelian 
concept of God, seem to have been expressly deduced first by 
Strato. 

The significance of Theophrastus lies in the realm of science, 
and it is to be regretted that onty few fragments of his history 
of natural science have been preserved (<j>v<TLKr] la-Topta). On 
the whole he contented himself with the perfecting of the Aris- 
totelian system, and he probably remained its most complete 
representative. The results in logic also, which he reached 

1 Diog. Laert., V. 36. 



CONTROVERSIES OF THE SCHOOLS 301 

with the aid of Eudemus, concerning the modality of the judg- 
ment and the theory of the hypothetical syllogism, are only of 
minor importance. 

Eudemus of Rhodes seems to have been a man of less signifi- 
cance, although he also possessed encyclopedic knowledge and 
wrote extensive works, later widely used, on the history of 
geometry, arithmetic, and astronomy. Spengel has collected 
the fragments of Eudemus' writings (Berlin, 1870). See A. 
Th. H. Fritzsche, De JEudemi JiJiodii vita et scriptis (Regens- 
burg, 1851, in connection with the edition of the ethics). His 
theological bias likewise appears to some degree in his elabora- 
tion of the Aristotelian ethics. His departure from its funda- 
mental political idea is seen in his insertion of economics between 
ethics and politics. 

Aristoxenus of Tarentum was stimulated by the Pythagorean 
doctrine, which he carried into psycholog} r and ethics. He is 
especially notable in the field of the history and theory of music. 
Besides the fragments, there has in particular been preserved 
his writing, -n-epl appovLKutv crroixeiW, published by P. Marquardt 
(Berlin, 1868), translated into German, with annotations by R. 
Westphal (Leipzig, 1883) ; see W. L. Mahne, De Aristoxeno 
(Amsterdam, 1793) ; C. v. Jan (Landsberg a. W., 1870). The 
fragments of the historical works of the Peripatetics in general 
have been published by C. Miiller, Fragmenta historicorum 
grcecorum, II. (Paris, 1848). 

Apostasy from the theoretic ideals of Aristotle began to 
appear already in Dicsearch of Messene, in his preference for 
the practical life which was of interest indeed to the historian 
and political theorist. From his numerous works in political 
and literary history, among which the /fr'os e EAA.aSos is the most 
important, and also from his TptTroAm/cos, only small portions 
have been preserved. M. Fuhr, Diccearchi quce supersunt 
(Darmstadt, 1841) ; F. Osann, Beitrage, II. (Cassel, 1839). 

The more original genius, Strato of Lampsacus, was called 
"the physicist," and this shows how actually independent he 
became of Aristotle. He threw aside all the Platonic imma- 
terialism that Aristotle had retained, — the pure spirituality of 
God and the supersensible origin and character of the human 
reason. Even if he thereby threw away the keystone of the 
Aristotelian teleology, Strato was, on the other hand, opposed to 
the Democritan mechanical atomism. He found the explanation 
of the world in the inherent qualities and forces (Swa/ms) of 
particular things. He designated the fundamental forces (dpx a 
as heat and cold. Of the two, heat plays the more important 
and creative role. The renewal of the old Ionic modes of repre- 



302 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

sentation is thus completed in the Peripatetic school, and it also 
at the same time found expression among the Stoics. It was 
a return characteristic of the time of the epigones. G. Rodier, 
La physique de Strato d. Lamp. (Paris, 1891). 

In the following generations the Peripatetic school be- 
came completely absorbed, so far as we know, in the 
specialized investigations of Alexandrian erudition, in which 
its champions played an important role. Under Andronicus 
of Rhodes, the eleventh head of the school after the founder, 
the school made a great effort for philosophical autonomy. 
The publications of Andronicus marked the beginning of a 
systematic reproduction, interpretation, and defence of the 
original teaching of Aristotle. This activity continued then 
through the following centuries, and found in Alexander 
of Aphrodisias (200 a. d.) its most distinguished repre- 
sentative. The activity was maintained to later time, until 
the Peripatetic school was lost in neo-Platonism. 

A great number of names of Peripatetic philosophers have 
come down to us from the company around Theophrastus and 
Strato, as well as names of some of both the nearer and the 
more remote pupils of the latter. These latter have in the 
main no longer significance for us : Clearchus of Soli (M. 
Weber, Breslau, 1880), Pasicles of Rhodes, who was presum- 
ably the author of the second book of the Metaphysics, Phanias 
of Eresus (A. Voisin, Gant., 1824), Demetrius of Phalerus 
(Ch. Ostermann, Hersfeld, 1847, and Fulda, 1857), Hipparchus 
of Stagira, Duris of Samos, Chameleon of Heraclea (Kopke, 
Berlin, 1846) ; Lyco of Troas, who succeeded Strato (269-226) 
as head of the school, whose successor was Aristo of Ceos ; 
Aristo of Cos, Critolaus, who belonged 1 to the embassy to 
Rome, 155 b. c. ; and, finally, Diodorus of Tyre. 

From the works of the Peripatetics dealing with the history of 
literature and the specific history of philosophy, the filou of Her- 
mippus and Satyrus (200 b. a), the AiaSoxai tw cfaXoaocfitav of 
Sotion, and the abstract of the last by Heracleides Lembus 
(about 150) deserve especial mention. The later writers, who 
form our secondary sources, have drawn upon these works. 

1 Cicero, Acad., II. 45, 137 ; see Wiskemann (Hersfeld, 1867). 



CONTROVERSIES OF THE SCHOOLS 303 

The serviceable work of Andronicus was further carried on 
chiefly, by his pupil, Boethus of Sidon, nevertheless in a spirit 
akin to that of Strato and the Stoics. The later exegetes, 
like Nicolaus of Damascus, and later Aspasius, Adrastus, Her- 
ruinus, Sosigenes, held rather to the logical writings of Aristotle. 
A comprehensive, philosophical, and competent appreciation 
and exposition of his teaching is first found in the commenta- 
ries of Alexander of Aphrodisias, "the exegete." Among his 
commentaries those upon the Analytics prior I., Tojjics, Mete- 
reology, De sensu, and especially the Metaphysics have been 
preserved. The last is in the Bonitz edition (Berlin, 1847). 
See J. Freudenthal, Abhandl. der Berl. Akad. d. Wiss., 1885. 

In his Own writings (7repl if/vx^'S — irepl dfJLapfievrjs — <j>v(tik£)v koll 

rjOtKoiv a.7ropLwv koll kva€wv, et al.) , he defends his naturalistic in- 
terpretation of Aristotle, especially against the Stoics. 

46. The most important scientific system that the Greek 
epigones developed was Stoicism. Its founder was Zeno of 
Citium, a man perhaps of Semitic or half-Semitic origin. 
Captivated but not satisfied by the Cynic Crates, he listened 
in Athens also to the Megarian Stilpo, and the Platonists 
Xenocrates and Polemo. After long preparation he opened 
his school in the 2roa TrouciXr) in the last decade of the 
fourth century, and from this place his society got its name. 
His countryman, Persaeus, as well as Cleanthes of Assus, 
who was Zeno's successor as scholarch, Aristo of Chios, 
Herillus of Carthage, and Sphserusfrom the Bosphorus, are 
named among his pupils. These from a philosophical point 
of view stand far behind the third head of the school, 
Chrysippus of Soli in Cicilia, who was really the chief 
literary representative of the school. Among his numerous 
followers there appeared later Zeno of Tarsus, Diogenes of 
Seleucia, a Babylonian living in Rome in 155, and Antipater 
of Tarsus. In connection with the Stoic school, Eratosthe- 
nes and Apollodorus stand among the great scholars of the 
Alexandrian epoch. 

For a general history of the Stoa, see Dietr. Tiedemann, Sys. 
der stoischen philos. (3 vols., Leipzig, 1776); F. Ravaisson, Essai 
sur le Sto'icisme (Paris, 1856) ; R. Hirzel, Untersuchungen zu 



304 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

Cicero's philos. Schriften (2 vols., Leipzig, 1882) ; G. P. Wey- 
goldt, Die Philos. der Stoa nach ihrem Wesen undihren Schick- 
salen (Leipzig, 1883) ; P. Ogereau, Essai sur le systeme philos. du 
Sto'icisme (Paris, 1885). The chief source for the older Stoics, 
whose original literature is nearly entirely lost, is found in Diog. 
Laert., VII., who breaks off in the midst of an exposition of 
Chrysippus. His statements go back in substance to Antigonus- 
Carystius (see U. v. Wilainowiz-Mollendorff, Berlin, 1881). 

The Stoa was characterized as the typical philosophy of Hel- 
lenism, from the fact that it was created and developed in Athens 
on the principles of Attic philosophy, and by men that originated 
in the mixed races of the East. Likewise, it was of great moment 
for the general progress of the world that this particular doctrine 
was afterwards extended and most vigorously developed in the 
Roman Empire. 

Zeno of Cition, the son of Mnaseas, 340-265 — for the diffi- 
cult chronology see E. Rhode and Th. Gomperz, Phein. Mus., 
1878 f. — was a merchant whose residence in Athens was perhaps 
occasioned by a shipwreck. He entered the different schools, 
and co-ordinated their teaching with painstaking care. His 
writings (see list of Diog. Laert., VII. 4) deal with the most 
varied subjects, yet their form is not remarkable. See Ed. 
Wellmann, Die Philos. des Sloikers Zeno (Leipzig, 1873) ; C. 
Wachsmuth, Gommentationes I., II. de Zeno Citii et Cleanth. 
Assio (Gottingen, 1874) ; A. C. Pearson, The Fragments of 
Zeno and Gleanthes (London, 1890). 

N. Saal, De Aristone, Ghio et Ilerillo Carth. commentatio 
(Cologne, 1852) ; H. Heinze, Ariston v. Chios bei Plutarch 
und Horaz, and O. Hense, Ariston v. Chios {Phein. Mus., 1890, 
497 ff. and 541 ff.). 

Cleanthes, who is said to have performed menial work by 
night in order to listen to Zeno by day, is in his simplicit}', 
perseverance, and austerity a type of the Cynic Wise Man, but 
he is insignificant as a philosopher. His hymn to Zeus is 
preserved and published by Sturz-Merzdorf (Leipzig, 1835). 
See F. Mohnike, Kleantlies der Stoiker (Greifswald, 1814). 

The scientific systematizer of the Stoic doctrine is Chrysippus 
(280-206), a copious writer of great dialectic ability. The 
titles of his writings are listed in Diog. Laert., VII. 189 ff. 
See F. N. G. Baguet, De Chrisippi vita, doctrina et reliquiis 
(Loewen, 1822) ; A. Gercke, Chrysippea (Jahrb. f. Philol., 
1885). For further information, see Zeller, IV 3 . 39, 44, 47 f. 

A second period of the Stoic philosophy, in which it 
made a nearer approach to the Peripatetic and Platonic 



CONTROVERSIES OF THE SCHOOLS 305 

teaching, began in the middle of the second century B. c. 
with Panaetius of Rhodes, who introduced Stoicism into 
Rome. Boethus of Sidon worked beside him, animated 
by a similar spirit. After him his pupil Posidonius, of 
Apamea in Syria, directed the school in Rhodes with 
great success. 

Panaetius (180-110) won in Rome the friendship of men like 
Lselius and Seipio Africanus the Younger, and accompanied 
the latter on his mission as ambassador, in 143 to Alexandria. 
He became scholarch in Athens later. He brought the Stoa 
into great repute and made its success assured in Rome. This 
success was promoted by his forming Stoicism into a kind of 
philosophy of universal culture for the needs of the Roman 
Empire. He ameliorated its original severity, he accommodated 
it to other great systems, he expressed the system itself in a 
clever and tasteful way. His chief writing, according to Cicero, 
was 7repl tcv KaOrjKovros. See F. G. van Lynden (Ley den, 1802). 

His contemporary * Boethus of Sidon partially followed the 
doctrine of Strato and Aristotle in theology and psychology. 
The eclectic tendency appeared still stronger in Posidonius 
(135-150). He was listened to with delight by the aristocratic 
Roman youth in Rhodes, where after extended journeys he had 
settled as head of the school. See J. Bake, Posidonii Rhodii 
reliquiae doctrince (Leyden, 1810) ; P. Topelmann, De Posidonio 
Rh. rerum scriptore (Bonn, 1867) ; R. Scheppig, De Posidonio 
Apamensi, rerum, gentium, terrarum scriptore (Berlin, 1870) ; 
P. Corssen, De Posidonio Rhodii. M. T. Cieeronis in libr. I. 
Tusc. auctore (Bonn, 1878). In his comprehensive erudition 
and man}'-sided interests, Posidonius is the most successful 
representative of s}'ncretism, that blending of Stoic, Platonic, 
and Aristotelian doctrines. He is also the most important of 
those who prepared the way for the Alexandrian philosoplry. 
A thorough examination of his work in detail seems to be the 
most important and most difficult desideratum for the history 
of Hellenic philosophy. 

For a list of the Stoics of this period, see Zeller, IV 3 . 585 ff. 
See A. Schmekel, Die Philos. der mitileren Stoa (Berlin, 1892). 

During the time of the empire, Stoicism became merely 
a popular moral philosophy ; but even in this condition it 
joined together the noblest convictions of antiquity in an 

i Zeller, IV 3 . 46, 1. 
20 



306 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

impressive form and manner, and it directed the moral 
feeling along religious paths. Seneca, Epictetus, and 
Marcus Aurelius appeared as its chief representatives at 
this time. 

Lucius Annseus Seneca, son of the rhetorician M. Annsens 
Seneca, was born about 4 a. d. in Cordova. He was educated 
in Rome and called to different offices of state. He was the 
teacher of Nero, and condemned to death by his pupil in 65 a. d. 
He has expressed most completely the monitory character of 
later Stoicism in his sententious writings, — to which the name 
of scientific researches cannot be unqualifiedly applied. Besides 
his unimportant Quasstiones naturales, there are preserved De 
prov identic/,, De constantia sapie?itis, De ira, De consolatione, 
De brevitate vitas, De otio, De vita beata, De tranquillitate 
animi, De dementia, De beneficiis, and the Epistolae morales. 
Also in his strongly declamatory tragedies there is involved this 
same conception of life. Complete sets of his works are pub- 
lished by Fickert (3 vols., Leipzig, 1842-45) and Haase (3 
vols., Leipzig, 1852 f.) ; German translation by Moser and 
Pauly (17 vols., Stuttgart, 1828-55), English translation or para- 
phrase by T. Long (London, 1614) ; see Holzherr, Die Philos., 
L. A. Seneca (Tubingen, 1858 f.) ; Alfr. Marteus, De L. A. 
Senecm vita et de tempore quo seripta eius philosophica 
composita sint (Altona, 1871) ; H. Siedler, De L. A. Senecos 
philosophia morali (Jena, 1878) ; W. Ribbeck, L. A. Seneca 
der Philosoph u. sein Verhaltniss zu Epicur, Plato u. dem 
Christenthum (Hannover, 1887). Further in the history of the 
bibliography, see Ueberweg, 244 f., especially for the writings 
cited elsewhere about his relationship to Christianit} T , of which 
the most important are edited by F. Chr. Baur, Seneca und 
Paulus (1858), printed in three dissertations and published by 
Zeller (Leipzig, 1875). 

The satirical poet Persseus, the erudite Heracleitus, and L. 
Annseus Cornutus, w T ho systematically developed the allegorical 
significance of myths in a theological writing, are mentioned 
among the many names of Stoics, and in particular, C. Muso- 
nius Rufus, who confined himself more closety to the practical 
teaching of virtue. Compare P. Wendland, Qucestiones musoni- 
ance (Berlin, 1886). 

His pupil is Epictetus, the notable slave of a freedman of 
Nero. He later became free himself, and lived in Nicopolis in 
Epirus, when the leaders in philosophy were proscribed by 
Domitian. His lectures were published by Arrian as Aiarpi/fot 



CONTROVERSIES OF THE SCHOOLS 307 

and 'EyxeipuW, and in modern times by J. Schweighauser 
(Leipzig, 1799 ; in the appendix is the commentary of Simplicius 
to the Encheiridion, 1800). See J. Spangenberg, Die Lehre des 
Epiktei (Hanan, 1849) • E. M. Schranka, Der Stoiker Epictet 
u. seine Philos. (Frankfort a. O., 1885) ; R. Asmus, Questiones 
Epictetece (Freiburg, 1888) ; H. Schenkl, Die epikteteischen 
Fragmente (Vienna, 1888) ; A. Bonhofer, Epictet u. d. Stoa 
(Stuttgart, 1891). 

The last significant expression of the Stoic literature is the 
Meditations (to. eis iavrov) of the noblest of Roman emperors. 
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121-180). These are edited by J, 
Stich (Leipzig, 1882), and translated into German by A. Witt- 
stock (Leipzig, 1879) [English translation by G. Long, Bonn's 
Library, The Thoughts of the Emperor, M. Aurelius Antoninus'] . 
See A. Bach, De M. Aurelio imperatore philosophante (Leipzig, 
1826) ; M. E. de Suckau, jfctude sur Marc Aicrele, sa vie et sa 
doctrine (Paris, 1858) ; A. Braune, M. AureVs Meditationen 
(Altenburg, 1878) ; P. B. Watson, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus 
(London, 1884). 

The more Stoicism took to moralizing, the more did its 
Cynic inheritance begin to preponderate. Thus, in the first and 
second centuries after Christ, Cynicism revived in the persons 
of those wandering preachers who went from city to city in the 
costume of the philosopher with obtrusive inconsiderateness and 
in affectation of beggary. They were eccentric figures, but are 
of more interest to the student of history than of science. The 
chief types are Demetrius, a contemporary of Seneca ; Oinomaus 
of Gadara ; particularly, however, Demonax, concerning whom 
we have information in a writing, reported under Lucian's name 
(see also F. V. Fritsche, Defragm. Demon, philos., Rostock and 
Leipzig, 1866), and Perigrinus Proteus, whose extraordinary 
end has been pictured by Lucian. See J. Bernays, Lukian u. 
die Kyniker (Berlin, 1879). 

Stoicism, as originally presented, especially by Chrysip- 
pus, was a perfectly well-rounded scientific system, which 
gradually grew lax in some particular doctrines, and finally 
vanished into a philosophically colorless moralizing. Yet 
it must be admitted that from the very beginning it was 
wanting in such organic coherence of its parts as one finds 
in the separate Greek philosophical systems. In the teach- 
ing of Zeno and Chrj-sippns a number of the elements of 
the earlier sciences are closely interwoven without making 



308 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

the texture logically necessary and consistent. The Eclectic 
development, then, which the Stoic school took, was not a 
fate that came to it from without, but the necessary conse- 
quence of its inner constitution. 

However many analogous relations may exist between the 
different parts of the Stoic teaching, }^et one must not make the 
mistake of thinking that its ethical teaching of submission to 
natural law might not have been as compatible to an idealistic 
metaptrysic as to its materialism. It is, moreover, equally 
certain that the Stoics' anthropological principle of the identity 
of the human soul and the divine reason might have been placed 
at the basis of a rationalistic theory of knowledge, just as well as 
at the basis of their sensualism and nominalism. The theories 
of the Stoa are not an organic creation, but woven together with 
care and cleverness. They make a well-connected system, but 
are not homogeneous. They could afterwards, therefore, be 
separated with relative ease. 

The scholastic division of philosophy into logic, physics, 
and ethics was likewise especially distinct among the Stoics. 
The main point in their teaching lies in their ethics. To 
teach virtue as the art of living was for them the entire 
purpose and essence of philosophy. Virtue was conceived 
by them entirely in its practical meaning of right action. 
Only so far as this definition of virtue was identical with the 
Socratic " correct knowledge," did the first division, ethics, 
need the other two divisions, logic and physics, for its basis. 

The development of special sciences corresponded so little 
with the originally established general relationship of the three 
divisions, and the Stoic logic and physics stood in such loose 
connection with its ethics, that it is perfectly conceivable how 
Aristo, a member of the school standing at first close to pure 
Cynicism, should estimate these collateral subjects of ethics as 
useless. It is not remarkable, either, that the physical and 
logical doctrines of the old Stoa were changed for others and 
then laid entirely aside. The care with which physics and logic 
were pursued in the old Stoa in contrast with ethics shows 
rather that the scientific interest of the school had not been 
fully lost. To this interest, which was expressed in the numer- 
ous special works — particularly the historical — Herillus com- 



CONTROVERSIES OF THE SCHOOLS 309 

mitted himself, when he declared science in the Aristotelian 
sense to be the highest good. 

G. J. Diehl, Zur Etliik des Stoikers Zeno (Mainz, 1877) ; F. 
Ravaisson, De la morale du Stoicisme (Paris, 1850) ; M. Heinze, 
Stoica ethica ad origines suas relata (Nanmburg, 1862) ; Kiis- 
ter, Grundziige der stoischen Tugendlehre (Berlin, 1864) ; 
Th. Ziegler, Gesch. der Ethik., I. 167 ff. 

The central point in Stoicism is the Ideal of the Wise 
Man. Stoicism drew its picture of the normal man after 
the model of Socrates and Antisthenes. It was its funda- 
mental motive to picture the perfect man in absolute free- 
dom from the changes of this world. This ideal was 
consequently first defined negatively as the independence of 
will and conduct from the passions {Affekte). This apathy 
(emotionlessness) of the Wise Man consists in his refusal 
to submit (crvyKaTd6eai<;~) to the excess of natural im- 
pulse, from which excess the passion springs. This re- 
fusal makes up the judgment of worth and the functioning 
of the will. The Wise Man feels impulse, but he does not let 
it grow into a passion, and he regards the exciting object as 
neither a good nor an evil. For to him virtue is not only the 
highest but the only good, and in this he is a true Cynic. 

M. Heinze, Stoicorum de affectibus doctrina (Berlin, 1861) ; 
O. Apelt, Die stoischen Definitionen der Affekte und Poseido- 
nius (Jahrb. f. Philol. 1885). 

One must regard it as a result of the ethical psycholog}' of 
Aristotle, that the Stoics so turned the Cynic unity of virtue 
and knowledge that they found the essence of passion in the 
judgment of worth, inasmuch as this judgment is immediately 
identical with feeling and willing. To desire, and to regard 
something as a good, are two expressions for the same thing. 
The excess of impulse (opixrj TrXeovd&vo-a) leads the powers of the 
soul (fjyefjLoviKov) into false judgment, and at the same time to a 
reasonless and unnatural excitement (aAoyo? kcu -n-apa ^vatv i/^x^s 
klvtjo-ls), and in this very thing consists the excitement, iraOos (per- 
turbatio). The Stoa distinguished four fundamental kinds of 
unnatural excitement : pleasure, trouble, desire, and fear. They 
and their subordinate classes were treated as diseases from 
which the Wise Man is free, for he has true health. 



310 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

Since the passions consist in false judgments and men- 
tal disturbance, so the virtue of the Wise Man, positively 
defined, consists in reasonable insight and the resulting 
power of will. Virtue is the reason determining itself 
theoretically and practically {recta ratio). Whether man 
will let loose this or that passion in himself, depends 
on him. That is to say, the matter is not determined by 
external events, but through his own inner nature. 

" Nature " (^uo-t?), which, according to the fundamental 
principle of the Stoics, is identical with reason (X070?), forms 
the content of insight, and obedience to insight consti- 
tutes virtue. By " Nature " is meant partly the universal 
nature of things, partly human nature. While passion is 
unnatural and unreasonable, the Wise Man acts naturally 
and reasonably when he makes his will to agree with the 
universal law of nature, and when he subordinates himself 
to that law. But in this subordination he is only acting as 
the reason of man requires. The ethical principle of the 
Stoa was obedience to the world law, and in this way it pos- 
sessed a religious coloring. 

The ethical dualism of the Stoics, with its contrast between 
nature and what is contrary to nature, and with its identification 
of reason and nature, goes back to the Sophistic Enlightenment. 
It avoided, however, the sharpened Cynic antithesis between 
civilization and nature. It rather referred what is contrary to 
nature to the preponderance of the individual impulse, and it 
characterized the natural as reason dwelling in each and all 
alike. The latter thought, which led to the conventional reli- 
gious principle of subjection to the world-reason, is an obvious 
revival of the logos doctrine of Heracleitus. 

The possibility of unnatural and unreasonable phenomena, as 
they are supposed to appear in the passions, is absolutely irre- 
concilable with the metaphysical development of the Stoics' doc- 
trine, and with their idea of fate and providence. Their ethical 
dualism and metaphysical monism stand in absolute contra- 
diction. This difficulty came to the Stoics in the form of the 
problem of the freedom of the will and the responsibility of 
conscience. These are ethical postulates whose union with 
mechanical necessity made difficulties for them, and difficulties 



CONTROVERSIES OF THE SCHOOLS 311 

that were solvable only in appearance. In respect to these diffi- 
culties they had to defend themselves against the attacks of 
Epicurus and Carneades. 

In designating the 6/xoA.oyov/xcVco? tyj cf>vo-€i £r)v as the positive 
content of virtue, and in representing at the same time the cosmic 
universal law as " Nature," the Stoic lacked a principle of morals 
that had real content. Consequently, on the one hand in the 
Stoic school, human nature was substituted for </>ixris, — at all 
events, according to Chrysippus, with reference to its unity with 
the world reason. On the other hand, the purely formal charac- 
ter of the consistency and of the harmony of the reason was 
accentuated (simply 6//,oA,oyov//,eVcos). In this sense, suggestive 
of the "categorical imperative/' was Stoicism accepted by the 
iron statesmen of Rome. Nevertheless, in the Stoic metaphys- 
ics, the formula of subjection to the world reason remained an 
empty form which found its living content first in the Christian 
doctrine of love. 

The Stoics were little able to make theoretically clear their 
antithesis of the reasonable and the unnatural, yet they rendered 
the service of introducing into moral philosophy the principle of 
duty by the accentuation of this antithesis, and b}' defining vir- 
tue as subjection to cosmic law ; and furthermore of having laid 
a greater stress upon the antithesis between that which is and 
that which ought to be. Wholly consonant with this is the 
pessimism which the}' for the most part held concerning the 
great mass of mankind and the circumstances of life. 

The Socratic concept of virtue, that the Stoa held, concentrated 
into practical insight (<f>p6vrf(TL<s) the whole of moral life, and allowed 
the existence of a plurality of virtues only in the sense of the 
application to many objects of this single fundamental virtue of in- 
sight. In this way, for instance, the four Platonic cardinal virtues 
were derived. Yet herein the Stoic clung to the thought of the 
unity of virtue to such a degree that all the particular forms of 
virtue exist in inseparable union. They form not only the en- 
during characteristic (8ia0«ris) of the Wise Man, but they also 
animate his every action. 

The unity and perfectness, which the Stoics like the Me- 
garians and Cynics regarded as essential in the concept of 
virtue, and in the ideal of the Wise Man, led them in the 
first thoroughgoing statement of their system to say that 
this ideal is reached either entirely or not at all. In neither 
goodness nor badness are there degrees of ethical value. 



312 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

Men are either good (airovhaioi), or bad ($>av\oi). and to 
the latter belong all who do not attain the ideal of wisdom. 
It makes no difference whether they be near to it or far 
from it. They are all fools, — spiritually sick. Thus for 
the older Stoics all virtuous actions (KaropOco/maTa) were 
ethically of equal value, and likewise all sins (dfiaprr/fMara). 
With the same rigorism the Stoics declared virtue as the 
only good, vice as the only evil, and all between as (d&L- 
dcpopa) indifferent things. 

The last definition led to many serious consequences in ap- 
plied ethics in which the Stoics agreed with the Cynics, although, 
it must be said, in theory more than in practice. Since the 
Stoics assessed the disposition ethically, they therefore made the 
Wise Man indifferent in principle to external conventional forms 
of performance or non-performance. In their theoiy of goods, 
they made a polemic attack, especially against the Peripatetic 
recognition of the importance which the goods of fortune were 
supposed to have for perfect happiness. Especially prominent 
is their treatment of life as an ahd^opov, which theoretically and 
practically represented suicide as permissible for the Wise Man. 

This rigoristic dualism could not last long, and so the 
school gradually inserted the striving, earnest man 
QirpoKOTTTwv) between the Wise Man and the fool, and the 
fitting action (to KaOrjKov) between virtue and sin. The 
school distinguished in the great interval which lies between 
the highest good and the evil, the irporjjfieva from the 
wtto 7rp orjyfieva. 

On the whole, the Stoics are the most outspoken doctrinaires 
that antiquity witnessed. The Stoa was a school of character 
building and also a school in reckless stubbornness (Cato). In 
the development of the school there entered with the different 
individuals many varieties and compromises of doctrine accord- 
ing to impending practical needs. These changes kept pace 
with the approach of the school to the teaching of the Lyceum 
and the Academy. Thereupon the perfectly unpedagogical 
character was gradually stripped off, which the representation 
of the ideal of the Wise Man originally had, and in its place in 
later times came the reverse and admonitory teaching, how one 
should become a Wise Man. 



CONTROVERSIES OF THE SCHOOLS 313 

Karop^w/xa, the conduct of a Wise Man, coming from a good dis- 
position, and KaOrjKov, the activity of the ordinary ambitious man 
adjusted to external requirements, stand somewhat in the rela- 
tionship which modern ethics marks between morality and 
legality. The setting up of this distinction shows how the 
realized ideal of the Wise Man was making way to the more 
modest ambition of approximating that ideal. 

The individualistic tendency expressed in the ideal of 
the self-sufficient Wise Man, is counterbalanced by the 
concept of the subordination of the individual to the 
cosmic law and the society of rational beings. The 
Stoics recognized, therefore, the social needs of man as 
natural and reasonable. They saw the realization of those 
needs simply on the one side in the friendship of individual 
Wise Men, and on the other in the rational communion of all 
men. Whatever lies between — that is, the national life in 
its different political forms — passed for them more or less as 
of historical indifference (dBuicftopov). The Wise Man bows 
to this as a temporal necessity, but he holds aloof from it 
as far as possible. Historico-national distinctions vanish 
before that reason, which gives equal laws and equal rights 
to all. The point of view of the Stoic Wise Man was that of 
the cosmopolitan. 

For the remarkable synthesis of individualism and univer- 
salism which characterized the Stoa, it is to be noted that the 
school soon passed in its social theoiy from individualism to 
the most general principle of association. The later Eclectic 
Stoics in particular were concerned with the theory of the state, 
and followed Aristotle in many things. But the ideal of the 
school remained still the citizenship of the world, the fraternity 
of all men, the ethico-legal equalization of all distinctions of 
condition and race. From this thought proceeded the begin- 
nings of the idea of natural or reasonable right, which later 
were laid as fundamental in the scientific theory of Roman 
right. 1 They reflect in theoretical form the levelling of those 

i See M. Voigt, Die Lehre vom jus naturale, etc. lei den Romern 
(Leipzig, 1856) to p. 81 ff. 



314 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

historical distinctions, which was completed for antiquit} 7 about 
the beginning of this era, and thus show Stoicism to be the ideal 
philosophy of the Roman Empire. 1 

To this ethical teaching there was joined in a most re- 
markable manner an outspoken materialistic metaphysics. 
The monistic tendency, expressed in the metaphysics, was 
united with the ethical principle, and was developed in an 
open polemic against the Aristotelian dualism. Uncreative 
themselves, the Stoics accepted the naive materialism of 
the pre-Socratic philosophy in the form of Heracleitanism. 
They expressly taught that nothing is real except the 
corporeal. They, however, recognized, in regard to the 
relationships of individual things, the Aristotelian duality 
of a passive and an active principle, a moved matter and a 
moving force (iracryov and iroiovv). They give to the uni- 
fying cosmic force all the characteristics of the Heracleitan 
X070? and the Anaxagorean 1/0O?. But they emphasize 
particularly the materiality of this reasonable cosmic force. 

In their confessed materialism, the Stoics went nearly to the 
childish consequence of looking upon all qualities, forces, and 
activities of bodies as again themselves bodies which were 
supposed to inhere spatially in the first bodies (/cpao-t? 86' 6'A.wv). 
This reminds us in some measure of the homoiomeriai of 
Anaxagoras. The Stoics also regarded time quanta and the 
like, as bodies — assertions that show nothing more than the 
doctrinaire wilfulness of the authors. See H. Siebeck on 
the subject. 

The Stoics, like Heracleitus, found in fire the unifying 
cosmic force, which is God, — which is changed by its own 
inner rational law into the world. They conceived fully 
that fire was the identity of the corporeal primeval matter 
and the rational spirit, and in this way they fell back from 

1 Cicero especially (De rep. and De leg.) developed the Stoic thought 
of the (frvaei dUcuov as the lex natures born in all men ; but also he has 
attempted to be just to the historical moments of jurisprudence. See K. 
Hildenbrand, Gesch. u. System der Rechts- u. Staatsphilos., I. 523 ff. 



CONTROVERSIES OF THE SCHOOLS 315 

the dualism of the time of the epigones to the naively 
vague monism of the previous time. Fire is therefore on 
the one hand the original corporeal substrate, the ap^rj of 
the Milesians. On the other it is the primeval spirit, the 
world-soul, the reason moving and forming all things, 
permeating and governing, like a divine living breath 
Qjrvevixa), the entire world of phenomena proceeding from 
it. It is indeed the creative world-reason, the \6yos 
a7repfiarcfc6<;. 

Fire has differentiated air, water, and earth from itself 
at the beginning of things, so that the two more volatile 
elements stand as the active and forming principle, in 
contrast to the two heavier as matter. In the cosmic devel- 
opment the primitive fire is destined gradually to reabsorb 
the world of variety into itself, and will finally consume it 
in a universal catastrophe (efC7rvpcoa^). The complete 
cosmic cycle is so perfectly determined in all particulars 
by the divine Being that it is exactly repeated periodically. 
In so far as the Godhead acts like a body under the law of 
mechanical necessity, is this absolute determination of the 
movements of all individuals Fate (el/map/ievr)). In so far 
as it acts as a purposeful spirit it takes on the garb of 
Providence (nrpovoia), and the Stoic evidently means by 
this that nature can yield only perfect and teleological 
forms and relationships. 

In all this we do not meet new concepts or new ways of 
stating facts. The Heracleitan principle is combined with the 
Platonic and Aristotelian concepts without being scientifically 
more serviceable. No scientific contribution worthy of the 
name can be found among the Stoics. In particular cases, as 
in astronomy, the Stoics join themselves in essentials with the 
Peripatetics. On the whole, in their treatment of these questions, 
they show a relapse from the inductive science of Aristotle to 
the old metaphysics. 

The pantheistic character of this conception of nature led the 
Stoic to a nature religion, which at the same time is a religion 
of reason. A characteristic monument to this is the hymn to 



316 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

Zeus of Cleanthes (preserved in Stob. Eel., I. 30). In the 
same spirit they made the most comprehensive use of the alle- 
gorical interpretation of myths. Teleology was so connected 
with this interpretation, and was so attenuated to a small an- 
thropomorphic spirit in praise of the arrangements useful for 
human needs, that it anticipated to a great degree the tasteless 
philosophy of the eighteenth century. The great ethical prin- 
ciples of the Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy diminished in 
the hands of the Stoics to a miserable utilitarian theory, which 
was the more characteristic the less it found a point of support 
in the Stoic doctrine of goods. 

It is of particular interest to note how the Stoics began to 
work a positive religion into their natural religion ; for the} r 
treated, by the use of the nature-myth interpretation, the gods 
and daemons of the popular faith as special forms of the original 
divine force. They came in this way to a systematic theology of 
polytheism, and the}' subjoined to it their widely accepted theory 
of divination, based on the principle of a universal teleology. 

The pantheism and determinism in Stoicism stood finally in 
absolute contradiction with its ethical dualism. The former was 
as optimistic as the latter was pessimistic. That everything 
bad happens 7rapa tf>vaw was treated as ethically fundamental, 
although according to their metaphysical principle it was impos- 
sible. This contradiction seems to have come in some measure 
to the consciousness of some of the Stoics. In response to the 
sharp attacks of their opponents, particularly of Carneades, it 
was the occasion for evasions tending toward such questions as 
the reconciliation of evil with a divine omnipotence, which we 
have later designated as theodicy. On the one hand, the Stoics 
attempted to disclaim the reality of evil, and then on the other 
to make sin and suffering the teleologically indispensable parts 
of the good and perfectly organized universe. 

The anthropology of Stoicism was consistent with its uni- 
versal physical postulates. The body, teleologically put 
together out of crass elements, is permeated through and 
through, and in all its functions ruled by the soul. The 
soul is the warm breath {irvev^a evQep\xov), which, as an^ 
emanation of the divine soul of the world, forms the uni- 
tary, living guiding force of man (to rjyefiovifcov'). It con- 
stitutes his reason ; it is the cause of his physiological 
functions, of his speech, of his imagination and desires ; 
and it has its seat in the breast. 



CONTROVERSIES OE THE SCHOOLS 317 

Ludw. Stein, Die Psychologie der Stoa (2 vols., Berlin, 
1886-88). 

The essential identity of the human and divine soul (taught 
also by the pre-Socratics) was carried out by the Stoics, espe- 
cially on ethical and religious lines. The analogy seemed suitably 
drawn between the relation of the human soul to its body, and 
the divine reason to the universe. 

The Stoics consistently ascribed to the soul of man no abso- 
lute immortality. At the most they gave to it a permanence 
until the e/c-u'/xoo-is, the absorption of all things in the divine. 
Yet some Stoics reserved this last privilege only for the souls 
of the Wise, while the cjxxvkot were dissipated both in soul and 
body. 

In the Stoic anthropology, as in their entire system, the fun- 
damental contradiction was this : their theoretic doctrine allowed 
to appear as mechanically necessary that very rationality which 
according to their ethical postulate was requisite to the formation 
of the ideal, so that the actual incompleteness of the ideal is incon- 
ceivable. From this is explained the fact that the whole theoretic 
philosophy of the Stoa was subjected to the point of view of 
that insight which guides the perfectly Wise Man in his con- 
duct. The same contradiction showed itself in the Stoic episte- 
mology, where the emanation from God (Jfx^vrov Trvevfxa) was 
represented as a tabula rasa. The tabula rasa does not already 
possess its rational content, as one would expect from this 
teaching, but wins its content gradually by the action of the 
senses. 1 

We must go back to the Cynic opposition to the Academy 
to understand how the Stoics can combine a sensualistic 
and nominalistic theory of knowledge with their doctrine of 
a cosmic reason. The Stoics sought in their nominalism, 
even as extrinsically as in their ethics, to give to their funda- 
mental principle of individuality the concept of universal 
validity, — a validity from which they could in neither situ- 
ation escape. The soul is originally like a tablet of wax, on 
which nothing is written, and in which ideas (fyavracriaL) 

i There was therefore an easy union possible with Stoic metaphysics, 
when the later eclectic popular philosophy (Cicero) said that knowledge, 
particularly that of practical truths, was God-implanted, universal to 
humanity, and equally innate. 



318 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

appear through the influence of things. Every original 
idea is an impression (tvttwgls) on the soul, or a change in 
it — as Chrysippus said, in order to refine this crude materi- 
alism. On that account this idea always refers to par- 
ticular things or conditions. Concepts (evvoiai) are, however, 
pictures aroused by memory and the reasoning faculty 
rendered possible by the memory. They are purely sub- 
jective, and, therefore, nothing actual corresponds to 
them, as in the case of the perceptions. Yet the Stoa 
vaguely tried to find in them the essence of all scientific 
knowledge. 1 

Concepts originate in perception, in part involuntarily 
from the very necessity of the mental mechanism, in part 
with conscious premeditation. The former are a natural 
production, and are common to all alike QkolvoX evvoiai). 
This class is therefore to be regarded as the norm of ra- 
tional knowledge, and as the valid presupposition (TrpoXwijns). 
In this sense the consensus gentium plays a great r61e 
in Stoic argumentation, especially in ethics and religion. 
For the consensus gentium is a common property of concepts 
existing for all men with equal necessity. 

As regards the scientific construction of concepts, the 
Stoics busied themselves with great, and, for the most part, 
very unfruitful formalism in their detailed study of the 
Aristotelian logic. They combined this study with that of 
grammar. In treating of the hypothetical character of 
logical truth, which they emphasized especially in their 
theory of the syllogism, they needed a criterion of truth for 
those original Ideas, from which the logical work of thought 
is supposed to proceed. They found such an one only in 
immediate evidence, according to which single Ideas force 
themselves upon the soul and compel its assent {crv^icaTa- 
6eaL$~). An idea of this sort they called (^avraala KaraXr}- 

1 See Zeller, IV 3 . 77 ff. 



CONTROVERSIES OF THE SCHOOLS 319 

TTTLKr}. 1 They found it either in clear and certain percep- 
tions or in the koivclI evvoiai. i 

R. Hirzel, De logica Stoicorum (Berlin, 1879) ; V. Brochard, 
Sur la logique du Stoicisme {Arch. f. Gescli. d. Philos., V. 
449 ff.). 

Under the collective name of logic, which they first emplo} r ed 
in the study of terms, the Stoics grouped grammatical and rhe- 
torical studies. They — especially Chrysippus — investigated 
many grammatical problems, and decided a great many of the 
questions of fact and terminology for more than for antiquity. 
Compare Lersch, Die Sprachphilosophie d. Alien (Bonn, 1841) ; 
Schomann, Die Lehre von den Hedeleilen, nach den Alten dar- 
gestellt u. beurteilt (Berlin, 1863) ; Steinthal, Gesch. d. Sprach- 
wiss. bei d. Griechen und Bomern (Berlin, 1863). 

Concerning the formal logic of the Stoics, see C. Prantl, 
Gesch. d. Log., I. 401 ff. When the Stoics distinguished studies 
concerned with the criterion of truth from those concerned with 
correct syllogistic method, they transmuted the Aristotelian logic 
into a purely formal science. The} T were stranded, however, in 
empty sophistry, which was unavoidable in such a limited con- 
ception. The Aristotelian analytic always is the frame on which 
they stretch out their artificial S3 7 stem with its unnecessary ter- 
minological changes. They have added nothing significant. 
Even in their simplification of the theory of the categories Aris- 
totle himself had preceded them. They recognized only the fol- 
lowing four categories : viroKeifxeuov, itoiov, 7ro)9 e'x w ? ^P '? TL ^s 
exov: substratum, quality, condition and relation. See A. Tren- 
delenburg, Gesch. der Kategorienlehre (Berlin, 1846), p. 217 ff. 

The distinction of involuntar}', universal ideas that enter the 
mechanism of representation, from those formed with scientific 
consciousness (Lotze, Logik, 1874, § 14), has psychological and 
logical value, but its epistemological use by the Stoics is an 
unhappy one. They also, however, according to their ethical 
principle, first ascribed full certainty to science as a system of 
fully developed concepts: Diog. Laert., VII. 47; Stob. Eel., 
II. 128. 

See W. Luthe, Die Erhenntnisslehre der JSloiker (Leipzig, 
1890). 

47. With less philosophical originality, but with a greater 
degree of unity and compactness, Epicureanism was the 

1 Of the difficulty with this term, — the comprehension of the actual 
from the side of the spirit, or the comprehensibility of the spirit from the 
side of what is actual, see Bonnhofer, Epiktet und die Stoa, p. 288 ff. 



320 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

form in which the Cyrenaic conception of life found devel- 
opment just as Stoicism was the development of Cynicism. 
In contrast, however, to the multiform eclecticism which 
characterized the Stoa in the persons of many of its active 
scientific champions through the centuries, Epicureanism 
was born mature in its founder as a complete method of 
living. Its numberless disciples in all antiquity changed 
it scarcely more than in its unessentials. 

Consequently, apart from Epicurus himself, who founded 
the school in his garden in Athens in 306, there are no 
independent thinkers of the school to be named. We may 
name some literary representatives : Metrodorus of Lamp- 
sacus, the friend of the founder ; Colotes of the same city ; 
Zeno of Sidon (100 b. c.) ; Phaedrus, whom Cicero heard 
in Rome about 90 b. c. ; Philodemus of Gadara and more 
especially the Roman poet Titus Lucretius Carus. 

See P. Gassendi, De vita, moribus et doctrina Epicuri (Leyden, 
1647) ; G. Prezza, Epicuro e V Epicureismo (Florence, 1877) ; 
M. Guyau, La morale d'Epicure (Paris, 1878) ; P. v. Gizycki, 
Ueber das Leben und die Moralpliilosopliie des Epikur (Halle, 
1879); W. Wallace, Epicureanism (London, 1880) ; R. Schwen, 
Ueber griech. u. rom. Epicureismus (Tarnowitz, 1881). 

As original sources, besides what is left by Epicurus, there 
are the didactic poem of Lucretius, De rerum natura (edited by 
Lachmann, Berlin, 1850, and Jac. Bernays, Leipzig, 1852), and 
the writings found in Herculaneum, particularly of Philodemus : 
Herculanensium voluminum quae supersunt (first series, Naples, 
1793-1855, second since 1861). Compare D. Comparetti, La 
villa del Pisoni (Naples, 1879); Th. Gomperz, Herkulanen- 
sische Studien (Leipzig, 1865 f., Wiener Sitzungsberichte, 1876, 
1879). Secondary antique sources are Cicero (De finibus and 
De natura deorum), Seneca, and Diogenes Laertius, B. 10. 

Epicurus was born 341 in Samos of an Athenian of the deme- 
Gargettos. His father seems to have been a school-teacher. 
Epicurus grew up in simple circumstances. He had read some 
philosophers, especially Democritus, and perhaps also listened 
to some of his older contemporaries in Athens. But he had not 
at any rate enjoyed a thorough education, when, having tried 
his hand as a teacher in Mytilene and Lampsacus, he afterwards 



CONTROVERSIES OF THE SCHOOLS 321 

founded his school in Athens, which was later named after the 
garden in which it was held (ot airb 7w Krj-n-wv ; horti). His 
teaching was opportune, easily understood, popular, and in har- 
mony witli the spirit of the time. It is thus explicable how he 
found wide - acceptance equally with the more serious schools 
of science. Owing to his personal charm, and because he did 
not make so high and strict demands either upon the life or 
thought of his auditors as others made, he became greatly 
esteemed as the head of the school. As such he worked until 
his death in 270. He wrote much, 1 only a little of which has 
been preserved. Of the thirty-seven books of 7repl <£vo-ews only 
two were found in the Herculanean library ; (published by Orelli, 
Leipzig, 1818.) In addition three didactic letters and the 
Kvpiai SoEai, besides man} 7 more or less extensive fragments, 
have been found. H. Usener has published a notably complete 
and orderly collection, excepting the two books irepl cpvo-ews 
by the name Epicurea (Leipzig, 1887). 

Epicurus' confidant and celebrated colleague, Metrodorus, died 
before him. See A. Duening, De M. Epicurei vita et scriptis, cum 
fragm., Leipzig, 1870, Alfr. Korte, Metrodori fragm., Leipzig, 
1890). The headship of the school passed directly then from 
Epicurus to Hermarchus. From that time on, numerous pupils 
and heads of the school are mentioned (see Zeller, IV 3 . 368- 
378), but seldom in such a way as to lead us to know their dis- 
tinction as philosophers. We know Colotes from the treatise 
which Plutarch aims against him, as the champion of the school ; 
Zeno and p hsedrus from the reports of Cicero ; also Philodemus, 
whose works in part were found in Herculaneum. See the liter- 
ature in Ueberweg-Heinze, I 7 . 264 f., especially H. v. Arnim, 
Philodemea (Halle, 1888). 

Especially at Rome, where C. Amafinius (middle of second cen- 
tury, b. c.) had first naturalized Epicureanism to a considerable 
degree, the theory found many supporters, and most of all in 
its poetical presentation in Lucretius (97-54). See H. Lotze, 
Qucestiones Lucretiance (Philol., 1852) ; C. Martha, Le poeme 
de Lucrece (Paris, 1873) : J. Woltjer, L. pliilosophia cumfontibus 
comparaia (Groningen, 1877). 

Conceri ing the development of the school, see E. Hirzel, 
Unters. zu Cicero's pliilosopliischen Schriften, I. 98 IT. 

The ethics of Epicurus was a reproduction of hedonism 
(§ 30) in a form riper in. so far as the more youthful fresh- 
ness of the Aristippan doctrine of sense-pleasure made way 

i See Diog. Laert., X. 26 ff. 
21 



322 HISTOKY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

for deeper reflection, such as already existed among the 
later Cyrenaics. The limitation of philosophy to a search 
for the means of attaining individual happiness was most 
boldly expressed by Epicurus, and was developed utterly 
regardless of every other interest, especially of science. 
Science and virtue are nothing that should be prized in 
themselves. They have worth only as indispensable means 
for the attainment of pleasure, and pleasure is the natural 
and obvious goal of every desire. 

Pleasure is not only positive pleasure in the narrower 
sense which arises out of a motion that satisfies the need 
(Jihovrj ev /ccvrjo-ei). It is the more valuable pleasure of 
painlessness, which goes with the state of more nearly per- 
fect rest 1 (j)hovr) /caTacrrvfiaTifaj) , a state consequent upon 
the satisfaction of wants. The latter affords doubtless 
a certain pleasure, but perfect happiness (iia/capim tfiv) 
can be found only in a state in which every want is absent. 
Happiness is health to the body and repose (drapagla) of 
the soul : hinaiocrvvws Kapiros /juiytaTo^ drapa^ia. 2 

Epicurus showed his deficiency in scientific training in the 
ambiguity of his expressions, and in his lack of logical clearness. 
His deficiency also appears in his disdain of all theoretical occu- 
pations. He had no appreciation of scientific investigations 
which serve no use. Mathematics, history, the special natural 
sciences were closed to him. The theory of pleasure that he 
called ethics, strictly included his entire philosophy. Physics, 
which had a determined ethical task to perform, and was pur- 
sued only so far as it performed it, was only ancillary; and 
as a help in preparation for this, a little logic was deemed 
necessary. 

It has given rise to much confusion, because Epicurus con- 
sidered fjSovr/ sometimes as a positive pleasure arising from the 
satisfaction of all want, and because he sometimes used the word 
in the more general sense when he meant the more valued ataraxy 
(drapa£ta). The introduction of the latter idea probably can be 
traced back to Democritus. When the 7rd6r) are designated as 

i Olymp. in Plato's Phileb., 274 (also Fr. 416). 
2 Clem. Strom., VI. 2 (also Fr. 519). 



CONTROVERSIES OF THE SCHOOLS 323 

storms, and yaX-qvia-^ as tranquillity (Diog. Laert., X. 83), we 
are reminded of the manner of expression of the great Abderite. 
This Epicurean arapa&a has only an outward resemblance to the 
Stoic apathy. The former is the virtue of ethical indifference 
to all passions ; the latter is passionlessness, which is based 
upon the perfect satisfaction of all desire. On this account it 
was looked upon, both by Epicureans and Cynics, as acquired 
only through a limitation of desire. 

Therefore Epicurus distinguished formally three classes of 
wants : natural and indispensable; natural and perhaps dispen- 
sable ; and finally, imaginary, which are neither natural nor in- 
dispensable. Without satisfying the first, man cannot live ; 
without satisfying the second, he cannot be happy ; the third 
are to be disregarded. Thus the opposition which the Cyrenaics 
urged between the natural and the conventional was taken up. 
Its strenuousness was diminished, however, in so far as the Epi- 
cureans gave a place to much in the second category, which the 
Cyrenaics were compelled to discard, because they recognized 
only the first category. 

Feeling QrraOos) can only decide as to what exists in 
any particular pleasure. We need, in order to counteract 
this, to reflect upon the course of life, and to assess the 
different pleasures so as to bring out also their conse- 
quences. 1 Such an estimate is possible only through the 
rational insight, the fundamental virtue of the Wise Man 
(cfrpovrjcns'). This virtue was developed into different single 
virtues, according to the different problems to be assessed. 
Through it the Wise Man is able to estimate the different 
impulses according to their value for perfect satisfaction. 
He is able to appreciate expectations and fears at their true 
value, to free himself from illusionary ideas, feelings, and 
desires, and to find in the proper balance of enjoyment that 
serenity of soul which is allotted only to him. 

The Epicurean ideal of the Wise Man is represented in 
nearly the same particulars as the Stoical Wise Man. The 
Wise Man is to the Epicureans also as free as the gods. 
By his reflective insight, rising superior to the course of 

1 Eus. Prcep. ev., 14, 21 (also Fr. 442). 



324 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

the world and of external fate, he finds happiness only in 
himself and in his virtue, which once acquired can never 
be lost. Yet the Epicurean description is made in some- 
what brighter colors than the Stoic, rather more pleasing 
and more joyous. But even if they avoided the sombreness 
of the Stoics, they were, on the other hand, rather lacking 
in vigor : the Stoic feeling of duty was wanting, as were 
both the submission of the individual to universal law and 
the consciousness of responsibility. Epicurus prized, it is 
true, spiritual above bodily satisfactions, because they are 
better qualified to lead to the ideal of rest to the soul. In- 
deed, he recommended what he himself to a high degree 
possessed, — a pure and noble morality, social refinement, 
benevolence, and consideration toward all. But all this is 
commended to us, because every kind of roughness of deport- 
ment must appear to an educated Greek as inharmonious 
with the aesthetic enjoyment of existence, which had become 
to him a natural want. The wisdom of life of the Epi- 
cureans was aesthetic self-enjoyment. Their egoism became 
delicate and refined, but nevertheless it was still egoism. 

The concept of ^poV^o-t? appeared in Epicurus's theory almost 
exactly as it appeared in that of Aristippus, only the matter of 
measuring the consequences of particular pleasures is rather more 
emphasized than in Epicurus. Merely upon this distinction of 
consequences Epicurus founded his preference for spiritual pleas- 
ures over bodily pleasures, and not upon an original distinction 
of worth. He insisted, in accordance with his sensualistic psy- 
chok)gy, x that the spiritual pleasures reduce in their simplest 
terms to bodily (o-dpg) 1 pleasures. 

The fundamental characteristics of the ethical atomism of 
Epicurus are shown most clearly in his treatment of social 
relations. He recognized no natural community of man- 
kind, but he treated all the mutual relations of individuals 
(1) as those which depend upon the will of the individuals, 
and (2) those which depend upon a rational consider- 

i Athen., XII. 546 (also Fr. 409). 



CONTROVERSIES OF THE SCHOOLS 325 

ation of useful consequences. He regarded these human 
relations not as higher powers, but only as self-chosen 
means for individual happiness. In this spirit he dissuaded 
the Wise Man from entering upon marriage, because it 
threatens him with care and responsibility. So also he 
recommended avoidance of public life. He regarded the 
state as a union * that has arisen out of the need of mutual 
protection, and created by the rational reflection of the 
individuals. The functions of the state are conditioned in 
their entirety by the point of view of general utility. This 
purpose of law brings about certain universal principles as 
everywhere necessary, but law takes a variety of forms of 
single laws under different circumstances. 

Friendship is the only social relationship worthy of the 
Wise Man. It rests indeed, too, upon the calculation of 
mutual usefulness. Among wise and virtuous men, how- 
ever, it rises to a disinterested communion, and in it the 
happiness of the individual reaches its zenith. 

It is thoroughly characteristic of the Epicurean conception of 
life, for its social ideal to be a purely individual relationship, 
viz., friendship. Friendship was particularly cultivated in 
this school, and in connection with its view of the Wise Man 
friendship easily got an insipid character of mutual admiration. 
The XdOe /SioW? is the reverse side of it, wherein indifference to 
political interest and responsibility, the selfish isolation of the 
individual, decay of national loyalty, is raised to a principle. 
With this egoistic withdrawal into private life, Epicureanism be- 
came the " common sense " philosophy of the Roman world. 
For the strongest basis of despotism is that desire for enjoy- 
ment with which every individual seeks in the quiet of his own 
life to save as much individual comfort as possible out of the 
universal confusion. 

The utilitarian politics of Epicurus has also its germ in that 
of the Sophists. Yet Epicurus seems to have been the first to 
carry politics out consistently, and thus also to have developed 

1 Diog. Laert., X. 150 (from the Kvpiai So^ai) : to t^s (pvaecas bUaiov 
eari avfxftoXov Tov <rv[x(f)epovTos ns to firj (SXdnTeiv d\Xi)\ovs firjde j^Xa- 
7TTeaBav. 



326 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

the leading principle of political compact (ovvOrjicrj). It was by 
the use of this theory that the Enlightenment of the seventeenth 
and eighteenth centuries tried to conceive the state as the pro- 
duct of the selfish reason of individuals who were without a 
state. There was, therefore, for Epicurus such a thing as right 
and wrong only where this sort of agreement about universal 
utility takes place between individuals. 1 Lucretius has repre- 
sented in a typical manner this supposed transition of man 
from a state of savagery to a state of society (V. 922 ff.). 

If the insight of the reason shall afford peace of soul to 
the Wise Man, it accomplishes this principally by freeing 
him through correct knowledge from all superstition, erro- 
neous representations of the nature of things, and therefore 
from all related idle fears and hopes which could falsely 
determine the will. In so far the insight is this (frpovrjais, 
being not only practical but theoretical in its purpose. To 
this end we need a physical view of the world which ex- 
cludes all myths and miracles, all transcendent, religious, 
supersensible, and teleological aspects. Epicurus finds such 
a view in Democritus. 

Compare Alb. Lange, Gesch. des Mater ialismus, (2 ed. Iser- 
lohn, 1873, I. 74 ff., 97 ff.). Familiarity with the theory of 
Democritus is said to have been made possible to Epicurus 
through Nausiphanes. At any rate, it is the most significant 
scientific influence which he experienced. Yet he is far from 
understanding and taking up into himself the body of thought 
of the Democritan system. He selected from the cosmology of 
Democritus what appeared useful for his shallow pseudo-enlight- 
enment, and he left untouched what was really philosophically 
significant. The identification of his physical and metaphysical 
theory with that of Democritus has undoubtedly done the 
most to hinder an earlier recognition of the scientific greatness 
of Democritus. 

The renewal of Atomism by Epicurus is betrayed in the 
theory that nothing is real except the void and the atoms, 
and that every event consists merely of the motion of the 
atoms in empty space. Epicurus refused, however, to ac- 

1 icvpuu dogai, 32 f.; Diog. Laert., X. 150. 



CONTROVERSIES OF THE SCHOOLS 327 

cept the fundamental thought of Democritus of the pure 
mechanical necessity of all motion. He replaced the origi- 
nally irregular motion of the atoms in the absolutely direc- 
tionless and boundless space, such as Democritus taught, by 
an originally uniform motion from above downward, which 
the senses appeared 2 to represent to him as absolutely 
given. This is the rain of atoms. 2 Since the intermingling 
of the atoms could not in this way, however, be explained, 
he asserted that single atoms arbitrarily deviated in a very 
slight degree from the direct fall. In consequence, collis- 
ions and vortices arose, from which the atom-complexes 
and finally the worlds came. Thus the cosmic theory of 
Epicurus again blended with that of Democritus and ser- 
vilely followed it from this point on. Yet he depended 
on the theory of Democritus only in its most general 
characteristics of anti-teleology and anti-spiritualism. He 
took pains to explain that it is a matter of indifference 
how one answers particular scientific questions. 3 

That this gross representation of an absolute fall of the atoms 
is not of Democritan origin, but a new theory of Epicurus, can 
be safely accepted after the researches of Brieger and Liep- 
mann; so also, Lewes, Hist, of Philos., I. 101 ; Guyau, Morale 
d' Epicure, p. 74 ; Plutarch, Plac, I. 3, 26 (Dox., 285) ; Cicero, 
Be fin., I. 6, 17 ff. ; Be fato, 20, 46 ff. When Lucretius (II. 
225 ff.) made a polemic against the view that earlier was held 
as Democritan, which alleged that the collision of the atoms could 
be explained by the quicker fall of the heavier ones, he had in 
mind supposably the hypothesis of other Epicureans. These 
latter wished to proceed as determinists guided by the funda- 
mental principle of the master, and this seems to have been at 
one time the inclination in the school. It is not, indeed, im- 
possible that Epicurus in part used also this more mechanical 
method of explanation side by side with the acceptance of in- 
finitesimal (eXctxio-Tov) declinations. (Cicero, Be fato, 10, 22.) 

Arbitrary self-deviation from the perpendicular fall — a theory 
with which Epicurus destroyed entirely the theory of Democ- 

1 Diog. Laert., X. 60. 2 Lucre., De rer. nat., II. 222. 

3 Diog. Laert., X. 87 ff. 



328 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

ritus — is only the solution of a self-created difficulty. That 
Epicurus prepared for himself this difficulty is to be explained 
from his anxious adherence to the truth of the senses. The 
way in which he explained it was suited to his ethical conception 
of the metaphysical independence of the individual. He made 
the deviation of the atoms from the perpendicular fall analogous 
to the voluntary activity of man. He showed himself to be in 
both cases the opponent of Democritus' leading idea of the 
d^apjxivr]. (Cicero, Defato, 10, 23.) 

This anti-teleological conception, which Lucretius especially 
developed in details, and extended in an Empedoclean fashion 
to the apparently teleological organic forms, seemed to the 
Epicureans to be absolute deliverance from superstition. They 
spoke as little of natural religion as of positive religion. On the 
other hand, Epicurus developed a Democritan thought in order 
to imagine blissful gods in the intermundia, the empty space 
between the numberless worlds. These gods, undisturbed as 
the}^ are in these worlds, appear in the eternal enjo} r ment of 
their self-satisfying peace as a glorified actualization of the ideal 
of the Wise Man who does not reach a state of perfection on 
earth. 

A gross sensualistic epistemology was joined to the 
materialistic metaphysics of Epicurus. The soul, whose 
materiality and mortality he especially emphasized, receives 
all the content of its ideas from sense perception. Sense, 
therefore, with its immediate evidence (evapyea) is the 
only criterion of truth. If concepts (tt/ooX^w) arise 
through the aggregation of similar perceptions, and if out 
of these upon reflection concerning the causes of phenom- 
ena, opinions (ho%ai) and accepted views {vTrdX^eis) are 
developed, the only criterion of their truth is i:i their re- 
peated confirmation by perception. 

The Logic of Epicurus, or, as he called it, the Can >nic, is lim- 
ited to such meagre definitions. See Th. Tohte, Epi kufs Krite- 
rien cler Wahrheit (Clausthal, 1874). He purposely avoided the 
theories of concepts and S3'llogisms. In his school Philodemus 
accomplished something in the scientific construe ion of the 
hypothesis and the inductive method: see Fr. Behnsch, Des 
Epicureers Phil. Schrift, Trepl crrjfxecoyv kcu o-^/xetwo-ewv, Lyck, 1879) ; 
11. Philippson, De phil. libro, irepl o-^etW kcu o-^/xeiwo-ewj/ et Epi- 



SKEPTICISM AND SYNCRETISM 329 

cureorum doctrina logica (Berlin, 1881); P. Natorp, Forschungen, 
209 ff. In the interest of this methodology which aimed at a 
theory of empirical knowledge, the later Epicureans merged 
with the younger Skeptics (§ 48). But in contrast to the out- 
spoken positivism of the latter, the Epicureans held to the con- 
viction that scientific concepts were formed to give- us on the 
one side the probabilities of the imperceptible causes of phe- 
nomena (aSrjkov), and on the other the expectations about the 
future (7rpo<rfxevov) through the comparison of facts. 



2. Skepticism and Syncretism. 

The strife concerning philosophical truth which waged 
fiercely between the four great schools, not only in Athens, 
but also in other intellectual centres, especially in Alexandria 
and Rome, necessarily presented to unprejudiced minds 
the skeptical question about the possibility and limits of 
human knowledge. This would certainly have happened, 
even if the question had not already come up in the earlier 
development of Greek philosophy, and if it had not re- 
mained a current opinion since the time of the Sophists. 
It is perfectly comprehensible that the skeptical way of 
thinking should be consolidated during these school- 
controversies, and in contrast with them should become 
more and more systematic. At the same time, however, 
skepticism succumbed to the universal spirit of the time, 
w r hen it was brought into most intimate relations with the 
question of the wise way of living. 

K. F. Staudlin, Geschichte. u. Geist des Skepticismus (Leipzig, 
1794-95) ; N. Maccoli, The Greek Skeptics from Pyrrho to Sextus 
(London and Cambridge, 1869) ; V. Brochard, JLes sceptiques 
Grecs (Paris, 1887). 

48. The first to perfect the system and ethics of Skepti- 
cism was Pyrrho of Elis, whose working years were con- 
temporaneous with the origin of the Stoic and Epicurean 
schools. He seems to have confined himself essentially 
to personal instruction, while the literary champion of his 



330 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

thought seems to have been his pupil, Timon of Phlius. 
The doctrine of skepticism was of such a nature that no 
school could form around it, and so it vanished with the 
next generation from the field of literature. 

Ch. Waddington, Pyrrhon et le Pyrrhonisme (Paris, 1877) ; 
R. Hirzel, Untersuchungen zu Cicero's philos. iSchriften, III. 1 ff. ; 
P. Natorp, Forschungen, 127 ff. 

Concerning Pyrrho's life little is known. He lived from 365 
to 275 approximately. That he was acquainted in his home with 
the Elean-Eretrian school, the Megarian Sophism (§ 28), is 
probable. It is very doubtful whether or not this happened 
through the medium of Bryso, said to be the son of Stilpo. 
A safer datum is that he joined the Alexandrian campaign with 
the Democritan, Anaxarchus. He later lived and taught at his 
home. No writings of his are known. 

When one speaks of the school of Skeptics, it lies in the na- 
ture of the case that one does not mean an organized society for 
scientific work, like the four others. Although moreover the 
Greek historians here also speak of diadochi, yet for this as for 
later time it must be remembered that only the most distin- 
guished representatives of the skeptical manner of thought 
(ayoiyrj) are meant. Among these Timon is of the first rank, 
while the other names in the time succeeding Pyrrho (Zeller, 
IV 3 . 483) are of no importance. Timon lived between 320 
and 230 in Athens in his last years, and from his rich literary 
activity are preserved particularly fragments of his o-i'AAoi, in 
which he derides the philosophers. See C. Wachsmuth, De 
Timone PJiliasio ceterisque sillographis Grcecis with the frag- 
ments (Leipzig, 1859). 

The direct derivation of Pyrrhonism from Sophistry 
shows itself partly in its reliance on Protagorean relativism, 
and partly in its reproduction of the Skeptical arguments 
found in the Cynic and Megarian teaching. As regards 
the relativity of all perceptions and opinions, Pyrrho as- 
serted that if sense and reason were deceptive singly, no 
truth could be expected from the two in combination. 
Perception does not give us things as they are, but as 
they appear in accidental relations. All opinions, not 
excepting the ethical, are conventional (yfyfp), and not 



SKEPTICISM AND SYNCRETISM 331 

of natural necessity. Therefore any assertion can be 
maintained against the opposite. Of contradictory propo- 
sitions one is not more valid (ov fjidWov') than the other. 
We should on this account express nothing, but should 
withhold (eirexecv) our judgment. Since we know nothing of 
things, things are also indifferent (dSidfopa) to us. He 
that abstains from judgment is secure against a disturbed 
condition of mind resulting from mistaken views. The 
moral worth of the abstinence of judgment (iiroxn) consists 
in the fact that it alone can produce equanimity (drapa^la), 
which is likewise the moral ideal of the Skeptics. 

The equal emphasis on arapa&a by Epicurus and Pyrrho, ac- 
companied by a most distinct disinclination to science, coincides 
with the idea of a common source of the two theories in the 
younger Democritans, Anaxarchus and Nausiphanes. But 
nothing is certain about it. That the Democritan view of the 
world rather than that of the teleological S3 r stems would neces- 
sarily further an ethical quietism, is plain. But the hedonistic 
tendency and the one-sided emphasis of the Protagorean relativ- 
ism — which was subordinated in Democritus — may be charac- 
terized as a falling away from Democritus and a relapse into 
Sophism. 

Even if the so-called ten tropes in which later Skepticism formu- 
lated its relativity of perception, should not be stated in this form 
in Pyrrho, nevertheless the Protagorean principle involved is 
current throughout his teaching. That he took pains to bring 
Skepticism into some sort of a system is to be seen from the 
division which Timon made, to wit, that there is a distinction 
between the constitution of things, our right relation to them, 
and the profit that we have to expect from them. That the last 
is the proper goal of the entire teaching is self-evident. The dra- 
pa&a is the happiness of the skeptic. The kiroxn not only in the 
theoretical, but also in the practical sense is meant as the abstain- 
ing from judgment in general, also from judgment of worth, and 
therefore from desire and feeling. It reminds us of the Stoic 
apathy which was also a restraint of assent. In either case the 
ideal of the Wise Man is equally foreign to life, and a denial of 
life. The eVox?? (called also aKaTaX-qxf/ta) was regarded as the 
central and characteristic concept of the system. Its adherents 
were designated on that account IfytKTiKoC. 

In this Skeptical theory it is of importance to note that the 



332 HISTOKY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

will is emphasized as a moment in judgment. The denial of the 
o-vyKaTaOecris (see p. 318) is possible only because affirmation or 
denial, as well in theoretic judgment even as in the approval or 
disapproval of natural feeling and impulse, is an act of will, and 
therefore icj> rjfilv. This is a theory common to Skeptics and 
Stoics. It is uncertain how far the former philosophers are 
dependent on the latter. 

Skepticism took a scientific and practically more avail- 
able form at the time when it temporarily succeeded to 
an ascendency over one of the great schools. Through 
Arcesilaus, who followed Crates as leader and died 241, it 
was introduced into the Platonic society, and maintained 
itself there for perhaps a century and a half, a period which 
is customarily called that of the Middle Academy. The 
most significant representative of the school at that time 
was Carneades of Cyrene, who died 129 b. c. after a long 
leadership. 

From the entire Middle Academy only these two personalities 
distinctly appear. Neither seems to have left anything in writ- 
ing. The thecHy of Arcesilaus was written down by his pupil 
and successor, Lacydes. Clitomachus, who died about 110, 
stood in the same relation to Carneades. We know about these 
two only indirectlj r , especially through Cicero, Sextus Empiricus, 
and Diogenes. 

Arcesilaus (written also Arcesilas), born about 315 in Pitane 
in .iEolia,, had listened to Theophrastus and the Academicians. 
He also came under the influence of the Megarians, and prob- 
ably of Pyrrho. He was notable, moreover, as a keen and 
witty orator. See A. Geffers, De Arcesila (Gottingen, 1841) ; 
ibid., De Arcesilce successoribus (Gottingen, 1845). 

In scientific significance and authority, Carneades towers above 
him, — Carneades, the great opponent of the Stoics, whose writ- 
ings he had carefully studied, and in his brilliant lectures re- 
futed. He appeared in Rome in the year 155 with the embass}' 
of philosophers, and gave there a deeply impressive example of 
the in utramque partem disputare in his two discourses for and 
against justice. Compare Roulez, De Carneade (Ghent, 1824). 

For the names of the above, see Zeller, IV 3 . 498, 523 ff. 

The Academy Skeptics seem to have made the nega- 
tive part of Pyrrho's theory their own, — and in the main 



SKEPTICISM AND SYNCRETISM 333 

in unchanged form. In using this negative doctrine in its 
essentials in their polemic against the Stoics, they directed 
their arguments chiefly against the theory of a crite- 
rion of truth. In this respect Carneades took the lead 
with his destructive dialectic by showing how little the 
subjective moment of assent (o-vyfcaTaOeais') is a safe 
determiner of truth or falseness, and by investigating thor- 
oughly the numerous difficulties of the theory of the 
KaraXrjTTTtKr) ^auraala (ideas carrying conviction). But 
he also directed his attack against the guaranty of the 
truth in logical reasoning. He showed how every proof 
demands a new proof for the validity of its premises, 
which leads to an infinite regress, since there is no imme- 
diate certainty. 

It is astonishing how little these Platonists seem to have 
cared for the rationalism of their original school. They did not 
lead their rationalism into the field against the Stoic sensual- 
ism — na}r, they even sacrificed it, for their radical Skepticism 
holds rational knowledge impossible. They did not seem ex- 
pressly to confute rationalism, but they silently neglected it 
as passe. When it is said of Arcesilaus (Sextus Empiricus, 
Pyrrh. Hyp., I. 234 f.) that he used skepticism simply on 
the one side as a polemic and on the other as mental gym- 
nastics, but within the innermost circle of the school he 
held fast to Platonism, the statement is so far true that the 
Academy took the skeptical arguments only as welcome instru- 
ments against the continuously pressing competition of the 
Stoa. But in doing so, nevertheless, the Academy became 
estranged from its own positive teaching. It is not impossible, 
but perfectly probable, that even if the above were a fact in 
regard to the leaders of the school, in the school itself the 
Platonic tradition was kept alive as before. The strength of 
the polemic interest among the leaders is .shown in Carneades, 
who raised with these formal objections many practical ones 
against the Stoics. He combated particularly, and occasionally 
with great acumen, their theology, teleology, determinism, and 
theory of natural right. 

In the Middle Academy the iiroxv (see p. 331) is the result- 
ant of these views. Meanwhile Carneades and Arcesilaus 



334 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

saw that the eiroxn was impossible in practice. In order to 
act, man must consent to certain ideas, and if he renounces 
truth, he must be satisfied with probability (evXo<yov, dXriOes 
^aivofjuevov)- Neither ethical principles nor the knowledge 
of single relations will bring undoubted certainty, but the 
will is moved by indistinct and not fully evident ideas. 
Therefore everything depends on judging correctly the 
degree of probability of different ideas. There are many 
such degrees, three in particular. The lowest degree of 
probability is present in an idea that is plausible in itself 
alone (nridavri) ; the higher in such an idea as without con- 
tradictions can be joined to the whole body of ideas to 
which it belongs QmOavr) ical a7re/nWacrTo?) ; the highest 
is present in every individual of such a body of ideas when 
all the parts have been tested as to their mutual congru- 
ence [iriOavr] kcli air ep Lair aaros /cal 7r6pio)S6Vfjbivr}). 

The content which Carneades gave to this practical prob- 
ability is thoroughly consistent with the doctrine of goods 
in the Older Academy. The entire system therefore is an 
attempt to destroy dogmatism through skepticism and to 
found a system of morals for the Academy. 

This fact, which indeed accorded with the spirit of the time, is 
to be emphasized : — that the theory of probability of the Middle 
Academy originated from an ethical, and not from a logical in- 
terest, "it was applied only to ethical questions. This does not, 
however, prevent our recognizing that Carneades, to whom we 
particularly owe the development of this theory, proceeded in his 
work in great part upon the basis of the Aristotelian topics, 
and always with great acuteness. The chief source is Sextus 
Empiricus, Adv. matli., VII. 166 ff. 

Later Skepticism disassociated itself from the Academy, 
in which dogmatic eclectic tendencies became ascendant, 
and was propagated especially in the circles of the medi- 
cal empiricists. The representatives of this theory were 
iEnesidemus, Agrippa, and Sextus Empiricus. 

Concerning the careers of these men there is little information. 



SKEPTICISM AND SYNCRETISM 335 

See P. L. Haas, De philosophorum scepticorum successionibus 
(Wurzburg, 1875) ; and E. Pappenheini, Archiv f. Geseh. d. 
Phil., I. 37 ff., who puts the locality of the later Skepticism in 
" a city of the East, unknown to us." iEnesidemus of Cnossus 
taught in Alexandria, and wrote Hvppuivaoi Adyoi, which he dedi- 
cated to the Academician L. Tubero, of which Photius pre- 
pared an abridgment still extant. If this Tubero was the friend 
of Cicero, one must put the activity of iEnesidemus at the latest 
in the middle of the first century, or a little earlier. This is, 
however, not fully certain. Zeller places him at the beginning 
of our era, and Macoll at 130 a. d. The calculations according 
to the Diadochi are doubtful on account of the uncertainty of 
the duration of the school of Skeptics. See E. Saisset, Le seep- 
ticisme: Enesideme, Pascal, Kant (Paris, 1867) ; P. Natorp, 
Forschungen, 63 ff., 256 ff. 

We know about Agrippa only by the mention of his theory of 
the five tropes. The names only of many of the other Skeptics 
are preserved (Zeller, V 3 . 2 ff.). 

Neither the native place nor residence of Sextus Empiricus 
(200 a. d.) is known. His writings, on the other hand, form the 
most complete body of skeptical theories. The IfyopoWioi viro- 
Ttnrojo-a? in three books are preserved, and also two other works, 
which are usually grouped under the title of Adversus mathema- 
ticos. Of these works, one (Books 1-6) treats of the science 
of general culture, of grammar, rhetoric, geometry, arithmetic, 
astronomy, and music; the other (Books 7-11) criticises the 
logical, physical, and ethical theories of philosophers from a 
skeptical point of view. See E. Pappenheim, De Sext. Emp. 
librorum numero et ordine (Berlin, 1874) ; ibid., Lebensverhalt- 
nisse des Sext. Emp. (Berlin, 1875). The same author has also 
translated and annotated the sketches of Pyrrho (Leipzig, 1877); 
S. Haas, Leben des Sext. Emp. (Burghausen, 1883) ; ibid., 
Ueber die Schriften des Sext. Emp. (Freising, 1883). 

This later Skepticism moved exactly on the general lines 
of the older, and it sought in vain to disown dependence 
upon the Middle Academy. It particularized the Protag- 
orean objections to knowledge based on sensation, and, in- 
deed, as appears first in iEnesidemus, there were considered 
ten so-called rpoiroi. These are badly arranged, but have 
for their purpose partly the discussion of the relativity of 
the perceiving subject, partly that of the perceived object, 
and partly that of the relationship between the two. The 



336 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

five tropes presented by Agrippa are of more importance. 
To the theory of the relativity of perceptions (o cltto tov 
7T/0O9 tl T/0O7TO9), and to the conflict among opinions (o 
airo t% Suujxovlas), he added the thought developed by 
Carneades, that proof demands either an endless regress 
from the premises (o et? aireipov i/c^aXkcov), or presupposes 
unallowed and unproved premises (o viroOeraco^). He 
finally added that scientific method supports its proof upon 
assumptions which themselves could only be verified by 
the thing to be proved. These opinions of Agrippa led his 
followers to the reduction of the skeptical theory to two 
tropes. Knowledge would be possible either through im- 
mediate or mediate certainty ; the former is not possible, 
because the relativity of all representations fails of a cri- 
terion, and the second would be possible only if it found 
its premises in the first. 1 

There is the mooted question whether among all the Skeptics 
.ZEnesidemus actually, as Sextus also seems to report, found in 
the general Sophistic theory of the IcroaOeveLa tw \6yuv, that is, 
that the affirmation and negation of every proposition can be 
equally well defended, a bridge to the reproduction of the meta- 
physical opinion of the reality of opposites. This would con- 
nect it with the Heracleitan thought, and Zeller seems to be 
decided (V 3 . 34 ff.) that the ancient reporters have made a mis- 
take. See E. Pappenheim, Der angebliche HeraMitismus des 
JEnesidemus (Berlin, 1889). 

The new tropes, which Agrippa introduced in a clever wa} r , 
are arrayed especially against the Aristotelian theory of the 
a/xecra, that is, of immediate certainty, and are closely allied to 
that doubt, which in modern times has been made by Mill 
against the syllogism. The difficulty is that the particular judg- 
ment, which is supposed to be based on the syllogism, is itself 
necessary for a basis of the general premise. (See Sext. Emp., 
Pyrrh. hyp., IT. 194 ff. ; J. S. Mill, Logic, II. 3, § 2 ; Chr. 
Sigvvart, LogiJc, I. § 55, 3. 

Connected with the opinions of the empirical schools of phy- 
sicians, who in denying ail causal theories limited themselves 
entirely to medical observations (r^o-is) , there is the more 

1 Sext. Emp., Pyrrh. hyp., I. 178. 



HELLENIC-ROMAN PHILOSOPHY 337 

developed treatment, which the Skeptics since iEnesidemus 
bestowed upon the concept of causality, in discovering many 
dialectical and metaphysical difficulties. .Relativity, the time 
relation between cause and effect, the plurality of causes for 
every event, the inadequacy of hypotheses which themselves 
demand causal explanation, etc., are among these difficulties. 
See C. Hartenstein, Ueber die Lehren der ant'iken Skepsis 
(Zeitschrift f. Philos. u. pJiilos. Kritik, 1888, vol. 93). 

49. The four great schools of philosophy which existed 
side by side in Athens — the Academy, Lyceum, Stoa, and 
the Gardens — made violent, nay, passionate war upon each 
other in the third and second centuries. Long afterward the 
opposition was so outspoken that after the time of Marcus 
Aurelius special chairs in the " university " of Athens 
were endowed by the government for them. Through this 
mutual contact the different theories were so far recon- 
ciled that in the first century before Christ the tendency 
appeared in these schools to emphasize less their disagree- 
ments, to render prominent their points of unity, and to 
unite them upon that common ground which exists in the 
most highly generalized ethics. The tendency appeared 
least of all in the Epicurean school, for that school was 
relatively stationary. 

The Stoa was the first, in conformity to its original na- 
ture, to incline to such syncretic views. After the time of 
Panaetius and Posidonius, it adopted into its teaching many 
Platonic and Aristotelian doctrines, while it tempered its 
ethical rigorism, and enriched its scientific interests. The 
teleological principle proved a most efficient cement, and 
on this account Epicureanism remained to a greater or less 
degree excluded from this syncretic process. 

How far on the other hand the advances on the part 
of the Aristotelian school could be under the circumstances, 
the pseudo-Aristotelian writing irepl kocf^ov 1 shows. This 

1 Published in the works of Aristotle, p. 391 ft. 
22 



338 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

was written probably by a Peripatetic, and supposably at 
the beginning of this era. It contained the interesting at- 
tempt at uniting Aristotelian theism and Stoic pantheism 
in a way that recognized the transcendence of the divine 
spirit, and derived the teleologically arranged world from 
its omnipresent creative power. It is to be noticed that 
this view gave to power a value independent of the divine 
spirit. 

Compare the literature in Zeller, IV 3 . G31, 3, as well as the 
exposition following it ; see also the same in Sitzungs-Berichte 
of the Berlin Akadernie, 1885, p. 399 ff. Zeller regards as a 
mean between the Peripatetic and Platonic ethics (IV 3 . 647 f.) 
the pseudo-Aristotelian treatise irepl dpeiw koI kclki(ov. 

To the discrimination between the transcendent essence and the 
immanent power of God, there is appended, in the writing -n-tpl 
Koa-fiov, a conception related to the Stoic theology. This is con- 
cerned with the degrees of divine power in which the peripatetic 
teaching of nvefyia forms the natural and philosophical link. 

The union of the teleological systems that existed in later 
times seems to have been first announced in the Academy. 
In that school Philo of Larissa (b. 87 b. c. in Rome) went 
from Skepticism to dogmatism when he asserted that in 
all the polemic expressions of the school teleology had 
always remained its esoteric teaching. But his representa- 
tion of this teleology resembled genuine Platonism only in 
very slight degree. His more distinguished pupil, Antiochus 
of Ascalon, to whom Cicero was auditor in Athens in the 
winter of 79-78 b. o., championed the opinion that Plato- 
nism and Aristotelianism were only different aspects of the 
same thing, and that this thing also definitely reappears 
with some terminological changes in Stoicism. 

J. Grysar, Die Akademiker Philon und Antiochus (Cologne, 
1849) ; C. F. Hermann, De Philone Larissceo (Gottingen, 1851, 
55) ; C. Chappe, De Antiochi Ascalonitce vita et doctrina (Paris, 
1854) ; R. Hoyer, De Antiocho Ascalonita (Bonn, 1883). 

The Platonism of this third, or of the fourth and fifth Acad- 
emies, is only to be found in its ethical teaching. Even Anti- 
ochus himself set aside the theory of Ideas, although he was 



SKEPTICISM AND SYNCRETISM 339 

much more energetic than Philo during the breach with the 
Skeptics of the school. Metaphysics and physics both remained 
in the background for these two men, and both epistemology 
and ethics were quite as Stoic as Platonic. The Alexandrians, 
Eudorus, Arius Didymus, and Potamo, are said to be continuers 
of the movement of Antiochus. 

In their adoption of the Greek philosophy the Romans 
naturally gave to it a thoroughly eclectic form. When, after 
conquering their first aversion, they went into the school 
of Greek science, they went to it in their peculiarly prac- 
tical way with the need for ethical orientation, and for that 
general culture in ethics such as a statesman might ask. 
Undisturbed by the technicalities and hair-splittings of the 
" controversies of the schools," they selected in the differ- 
ent systems what was suited to their needs. They com- 
pleted this choice from the point of view that the truth 
must be found in a practically useful conviction illumi- 
nating all with its natural evidence. The probabilism 
of the Middle Academy and the Stoic teaching of consen- 
sus gentium, however, for the most part furnished the 
point of view, which may be called of the " healthy human 
understanding." 

It was Cicero's merit to have given his countrymen a 
tasteful presentation of Greek philosophy in the above accep- 
tation of the term. His friend Varro and the School of the 
Sextians, which flourished for a brief period at the begin- 
ning of this era, may be mentioned with him. Cicero, who 
was without independent philosophical significance, had 
great success in naturalizing the philosophical content of 
Greek thought in Latin literature, and in thus making it 
fruitful even beyond Roman civilization. 

E. Zeller, Ueber die Religion und Philosophie bei den Romern 
(Virch. Holtz. Vortr., Berlin, 1866) ; Durand de Laur, Le mouve- 
ment de la pensee pliilosophique depuis Ciceron jusqu'ct Tacite 
(Paris, 1874). 

The fear which the stricter Romans entertained that the new 
learning would undermine the traditional morals of society led 



340 HISTORY OP ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

to a decree of the Senate in 161 b. c. which banished philoso- 
phers and rhetoricians from Rome. But in the middle of this 
century the flow of Greek philosophy into Roman intellectual 
life began and went on uninterruptedly. At first the philo- 
sophic message came through the Greek teachers in Rome, 
then through the custom among the younger Romans of per- 
fecting their education in the centres of Greek science, — in 
Athens, Rhodes, and Alexandria ; and, doubtless, not the least 
of these influences was the embassy of Athenian philosophers, 
Carneades, Critolaus, and Diogenes (156-155 b. a). 

M. Tullius Cicero (106-43) had listened to Greek philos- 
ophers of all the schools in Athens and Rhodes, and he had 
read much, so that in his latter years, when he made Greek 
philosophy speak the Roman tongue (romisch ?'eden), a rich 
material stood at his command. Out of this, without much 
scientific discrimination, but with tact for what was suitable 
for Rome, he brought his books together fairly quickly. Those 
preserved are : Academica (partly), De finibus bonorum et ma- 
lorum, Disputationes Tusculance, De officiis, Paradoxa, De 
amicitia, De senectute, De natura deorum, De fato (imperfect), 
De divinatione, De republica (partly). Only fragments of 
Hortensius, Consolatio, De legibus remain. Cicero made no 
secret that he was essentially setting forth the Greek originals, 
and in many cases we can determine his sources. From the 
rich literature (see Ueberweg-Heinze, I 7 . 283 f.) we may men- 
tion A. B. Krische, Forschungen, Vol. I. ; Die theologisclien 
Lehren der griechischen Denker, eine Prufung der Darstellung 
Cicero's (Gottingen, 1840) ; J. F. Herbart, Ueber die Philoso- 
phie des Cicero (1811, Complete Works, XII. 167 ff.) ; R. 
Ktihner, M. T. Cicero in philosophiam ejusque partes merita 
(Hamburg, 1825) ; C. F. Hermann, De interpretatione Timcei 
dialogi a Ciceronis relicla (Gottingen, 1842) ; J. Klein, De 
fontibus Topicorum Ciceronis (Bonn, 1844) ; Th. Schiche, De 
fontibus librorum Ciceronis qui sunt de divinatione (Jena, 1875) ; 
K. Hartfelder, Die Quellen von Cicero's De divinatione (Frei- 
burg i. B., 1878) ; especially R. Hirzel, Untersuchungen zu 
Cicero's pliilos. Schriften (3 vols., Leipzig, 1877-83). 

In his epistemology Cicero adhered to the Middle Academy's 
teaching as the most moderate, elegant, and important method 
of philosophizing. Metaphysically he was a Skeptic, and was 
indifferent in the main to physical problems. Probability how- 
ever did not satisfy him as an ethical criterion, but he appealed 
to the Stoic consensus gentium both in ethics and in the allied 
topics of natural religion, — that is, as to immortality, the exist- 
ence of God, and providence. Nevertheless he conceived the 



SKEPTICISM AND SYNCRETISM 341 

Koival h/voiai not in the sense of the Stoic 7rpoA.?ji//eis (see p. 318), 
but rather as innate and natural, and therefore immediately cer- 
tain convictions ; and his strength rests in a noble representa- 
tion of these. 

Likewise his friend, the learned M. Terentius Varro (116-27), 
made such a profound study of Greek philosophy as to enable 
him to distinguish two hundred and eighty-eight Greek sects. 
He found the suitable synthesis of these in the eclecticism of 
Antiochus of Ascalon, to which he, in the spirit of Pansetius, 
added somewhat more Stoicism. He took in particular from 
Panaetius the distinction between a philosophical, a poetical, 
and a popular religion. His fragments offer much yet for the 
history of Hellenistic philosophy. See E. Norden, Beitrage, 
p. 428 f. 

Yet nearer to Stoicism stand the Sextians, whose first mem- 
ber, Quintus Sextus, lived as early as in the Augustinian age. 
His son, who bore his name, and Sotion of Alexandria followed 
him. The latter was a revered teacher of Seneca and of several 
others (Zeller, IV 3 . 676 f.). The school soon became extinct, 
because, as it appears, it rested on the personal impression 
made by the dignified moral instruction of the Sextians. Some 
of their Sentences are still in a Syrian version (Gildemeister, 
Bonn, 1873). The Stoic morals form the essential content of 
these Sentences, interspersed, nevertheless, with old Pythago- 
rean precepts, supposedly through the influence of Sotion. 

The Eclectic popular philosophy, not as a school, but as the 
conviction of cultured men, was propagated throughout an- 
tiquity nearly in the manner that Cicero had presented it. 
Its most remarkable later literary representative of this is 
the well-known physician Claudius Galenus (died about 200). 
He has immortalized his name in the history of formal logic, 
through the unfortunate discovery of the fourth figure of the 
syllogism, named after him. See K. Sprengel, Beitrage zur 
Geschichte der Medicin, I. 117 ff. Ch. Daremberg, Essai sur 
Galien considere comme philosophe (Paris and Leipzig, 1848) ; 
a series of discussions by E. Chauvet (Caen and Paris, 1860- 
82) ; Ueberweg, Logik, § 103. 

50. It was a result of the Sophistic Enlightenment and 
its destruction of all belief in the supernatural that Pla- 
tonic immaterialism could not at first find fast footing in 
the circles of Greek and Roman civilization; and that, 
therefore, all the different schools united in laying the 
whole strength of their convictions in ethics, while cherish- 



342 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

ing their coldly rational natural religion. In the mean 
time, however, among the Roman peoples, the religious 
spirit grew to a mighty desire for a saving faith. It began 
to invade philosophy also more and more. The masses 
lost the Hellenic trust in the satisfactoriness of earthly 
existence. In its place there entered that feverish longing 
for a higher mysterious satisfaction, which longing showed 
itself in the groping about after all cults that were foreign 
and fantastic. In this way belief in the self-sufficiency of 
the Wise Man vanished from philosophy, and yielded to 
that expectancy that a higher power would give a bless- 
edness and release from the world, — a thing that virtue 
could not guarantee. When the consciousness of the old 
world, broken as it were, thus rose in its longing for super- 
natural help, philosophy passed out of the sensualism and 
rationalism, which had governed the post-Aristotelian 
time, into Mysticism. From its inmost need philosophy 
seized then upon that conception of the world which 
contrasted the sensible and supersensible worlds: viz., 
upon Platonism. 

The centre of this movement was Alexandria, where in 
liveliest intercourse of the people of the Orient and Occi- 
dent the amalgamation of religions was completed on the 
grandest scale. Here, at the beginning of our era, two 
tendencies in mystic religious Platonism became prominent. 
One of these accorded more with the Greek, the other with 
the Oriental life. They were the so-called neo-Pythagorean- 
ism and the Judaic-Alexandrian philosophy. Both seem to 
have gone back to the attempt to develop into a scientific 
theory, with the help of Platonism, the views which had 
been fundamental in the Pythagorean mysteries. 

J. Simon, Histoire de Vecole d'Alexandrie (Paris, 1843 ff.) ; 
E. Matler, Essai sur Vecole d'Alexandrie (Paris, 1840 ff.) ; E. 
Vacherot, Histoire critique de Vecole d'Alexandrie (Paris, 1846 
ff.) ; see W, J. Thiersch, Politik u. Philos. in ihrem Verhdltnis 



SKEPTICISM AND SYNCRETISM 343 

zur Religion unter Trajan, Hadrian, u. den Antoninen (Marburg, 
1853) ;• Th. Ziegler, Ueber die Entstehung der Alexandrischen 
Philos. (Philologenversammhing, 1882). 

That the so-called neo-Pythagoreanism is only a branch of 
eclectic religious Platonism is obvious from the content of the 
theory. It has very little to do with the original Pythagorean 
philosophy (§ 24), but the more with the religious spirit of the 
Pythagorean mysteries. But neo-Pythagoreanism shares (Zeller, 
V 3 . 325 ff.) this with the Jewish sect of Essenes to such a degree 
that the origin of the Essenes and their new religious concep- 
tion may be sought in the contact of Judaism with these Orphic- 
Pythagorean mysteries. The practical consequence of this 
contact was in Palestine the origination of the Essenes ; the 
theoretic consequence was in Alexandria the philosophy of 
Philo. 

The Pythagorean band, which in the course of the fourth 
century b. c. lost its character as a school of philosophy, 
but, as we may suppose, had always retained its character 
as one of the Mysteries and as an asceticism, reappeared in 
the first century B. c. with philosophic teachings. These 
were, it must be said, essentially of a religious cast, and 
were developed during the next two centuries in a very 
large literature, which the band foisted almost altogether 
upon Pythagoras or other older Pythagoreans, especially 
Archytas. Among the personalities who represented this 
direction of thought, and were therefore called neo-Py- 
thagoreans, were P. Nigidius Figulus, a friend of Cicero, 
Sotion, a friend of the Sextians (§ 49), and particularly 
Apollonius of Tyana, Moderatus of Gades, and, in later 
times, Nicomachus of Gerasa and Numenius of Apamea. 

See M. Hertz, De Nigidii Figuli studiis atque operibus (Berlin, 
1845) ; also dissertations by Breysig (Berlin, 1854) and Klein 
(Bonn, 1861). 

Apollonius was the ideal of neo-Pythagorean wisdom to him- 
self and to others, and he appeared with great eclat at the time 
of Nero as the founder of a religion. His life is oddly embel- 
lished by Philostratus (220 b. c.) (published by Westermann, 
Paris, 1848, and Kayser, Leipzig, 1870-71). See Chr. Baur, 
Apollonius vo?i Tyana und Christus (in three editions, Leipzig, 
1876) ; Ueberweg-Heinze, I 7 . 300 f. 



344 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

Numenius, who lived in the second half of the second cen- 
tury, was already under Philo's influence, and probably also 
under that of the Gnostics. The doctrine of the three gods is 
characteristic of him : (1) the supreme and supersensible ; 
(2) the demiurge giving form to material things; (3) the uni- 
verse thus formed. (See F. Thedinga, De Numenii pliilos. plat., 
Bonn, 1875.) We possess only the arithmetical and musical 
works of his younger contemporary Nicomachus. For the spu- 
rious literature essentially accounted for by a need of authority 
for the school, see in Fr. Beckmann, De Pytliagoreorum veliquiis 
(Berlin, 1844) ; Zeller, V 3 . 100 ff. 

Neo-Pythagoreanism joined monotheism to its fantastic 
cult of gods and daemons in entirely the same way in which 
we meet this in the old Pythagoreans, in Plato, and in a 
systematic way among the Stoics. But neo-Pythagorean- 
ism transformed its monotheism with the help of the Pla- 
tonic-Aristotelian teaching into a reverence for God as a 
pure spirit, which man has to serve not by outward sacri- 
fice and act but in spirit, with silent prayer, with virtue 
and wisdom. Apollonius travelled about the ancient world 
as the proclaimer of this pure knowledge of God and this 
higher worship. Pythagoras and he were honored as the 
perfect men in whom God had revealed himself. The sci- 
entific significance of the school, however, consisted in the 
fact that it united with this cult a philosophical point of 
view. One finds, indeed, this point of view in all its essen- 
tials in Plato, Aristotle, and in part in the Stoa ; yet it is 
distinguished from the other, one-sided moralizing impulse 
of the time by its lively theoretic interests, which, although 
dependent and unproductive, extended to logical and phys- 
ical questions as well. 

A sharp dualism of spirit and matter is the fundamental 
postulate in this theory in the sense that the former is the 
good, pure principle in life, and the latter the bad, unholy 
principle. Although God is here likewise pictured in 
Stoical fashion as the irvev/jba immanent in the whole 
world, nevertheless he must, on the other hand, be free 



SKEPTICISM AND SYNCRETISM 345 

from all contact with matter which might pollute him. 
Consequently he cannot directly act upon matter, but the 
demiurge for this purpose is introduced as a mediator 
between God and matter (Timaeus). The Ideas according 
to which God perfects the world passed for the neo-Pythago- 
reans only as archetypes in the divine spirit. They became, 
in a similarly fantastic way, partly identified with the 
Pythagorean numbers, partly set in some secret relation- 
ship, as they had begun to be regarded by Plato and his 
immediate pupils. At the same time they are the forms of 
matter in the Aristotelian sense. In the graded interval 
between God and matter, the daemons and stellar gods 
find place above men. 

The anthropological dualism of the neo-Pythagoreans is 
consistent with their metaphysical dualism. The spirit is 
punished by being confined in a corporeal prison, and can 
free itself again through purification and expiation, through 
mortification of the flesh, and through godly life. The Pla- 
tonic theory of the three parts of the soul is blended with 
the Aristotelian teaching of the vov? (Timaeus), and im- 
mortality is represented in the (partially conscious) mythical 
form of transmigration. The moral and religious problem 
is how to suppress the senses. In the solution of this prob- 
lem man is helped by mediating daemons and by divine 
revelation, which speaks in holy men like Pythagoras and 
Apollonius. 

Pythagoras is said to have revealed such doctrine to his 
band and to have veiled it in his theory of numbers, Plato to 
have borrowed it from him. The later neo-Pythagoreans, par- 
ticularly Numenius, referred the revelation still further back to 
Moses. This is due to Philo's influence. 

The authoritative importance which the fundamental opposi- 
tion of good and bad has for the neo-Pythagorean idea of the 
world makes this philosophy appear an offshoot of the Old 
Academy. Its historical transition is through eclectic Plato- 
nism, supposably in the form that Posidonius connected it in 
Stoicism. See R. Heinze, Xenocrates, p. 156. 



346 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

The divergence of neo-Pythagoreanism from the Platonic 
metaphysics consisted essentially in its stripping the Ideas (and 
numbers) of their metaphysical independence and in making 
them thoughts in the divine mind. This is also the authorita- 
tive conception for neo-Platonism. The far-reaching signifi- 
cance of this change consisted in the fact that the immaterial 
substance was thought as spirit, as conscious Immanence. The 
beginning of this thought is to be found in the Aristotelian 
v6t](tls voTJo-ews, its wider preparation in the Stoic doctrine which 
contrasted the content of the ideas (to Xcktov) as incorporeal 
to the objects, all of which are corporeal. This tendency 
reached its perfect development in Philo's concept of the divine 
personality. 

Neo-Pythagoreanism was the first system which expressed the 
principle of authority in the form of divine revelation, and thus 
against sensualism and rationalism it initiated the mystic di- 
rection of ancient thought. The saints of this philosophical 
religion are divinely favored men, to whom the pure doctrine 
has in part been given. Theoretically this new source of knowl- 
edge was designated still as ro£s, as the immediate intuition of 
the intelligible (votjtov). It is to be distinguished from the 
<Woia, or the knowledge of the understanding, as also from the 
86£a and the aXo-O-qo-vs. 

Daemonology was the theoretic basis for the peculiar amal- 
gamation of this monotheism with the Mysteries. It rested 
upon the need of bridging the chasm between God's tran- 
scendence and the world. But it offered the possibility of 
uniting all the fantastic faiths and cults into one system. 
The detailed system of divination which the neo-Pythagoreans 
got from the Stoics was united with this theory. 

The peculiar blending of Platonism and Judaism was 
also closely related to the above neo-Pythagoreanism, and 
was completed at the beginning of our era in the so-called 
Alexandrian religious philosophy. Philo of Alexandria 
was its leader. 

A. Gfrorer, Philo und die alex. Theosophie (2 ed., Stuttgart, 
1835) ; F. Dahne, Die judisch.-alex. Religionsphilosophie (Halle, 
1834) ; M. Wolff, Die philonische Philosophie (2 ed., Gothen- 
burg, 1858). Concerning the Xo'yos doctrine, see F. Keferstein, 
Philo's Lehre von dem gottlichen Mittelivesen (Leipzig, 1846) ; 
J. Bucher, Philonische Studien (Tubingen, 1848) ; Ferd. De- 
launey, Philo d'Alex. (Paris, 1867) ; J. Reville, Le logos d'apres 



SKEPTICISM AND SYNCRETISM 347 

Philo (Geneva, 1877) ; Histories of Judaism by Just, Graetz, 
and Abr. Geiger; Ewald, Gesch. des Volkes Israel; Dorner, 
Entwickelungsgesch. der Lehre von der Person Christi u. andere 
dogmengesch. Werke ; see Ueberweg-Heinze, I 7 . 292 f. 

Philo (born about 25 b. c. and died 50 a. d.) came from one 
of the most influential Jewish families in Alexandria. He 
headed the embassy in 39 and 40 that the Alexandrian Jews 
sent to Caligula. His writings, among which there is much 
that is doubtful and spurious, have been published by Th. Man- 
gey (London, 1742), C. E. Richter (Leipzig, 1838 ff.), and 
stereotyped by Tauchnitz (Leipzig, 1851 ff.). See Ch. G. L. 
Grossman, Qucestiones Philonece (Leipzig, 1829, and other edi- 
tions) ; Jac. Bernays, Die unter Philo's Werken stehende Schrift 
uber die EwigJieit der Welt (published by Berlin Academy, 
1877) ; Concerning the writing 7repi tov iravTa cnrovSalov zivai eAev- 
Ocpov, see K. Ausfeld (Gottingen, 1887) and P. Wendland, 
Arch. /. Gesch. d. Philos., I. 509 ff. ; H. v. Arnim, Quellen- 
Studien zu Philo (Berlin, 1889) ; J. Drummond, Philo Judceus 
(London, 1888) ; M. Freudenthal, Die Erkenntnistheorie Philo's 
(Berlin, 1891). 

As early as the middle of the second century before this era 
there can be seen influences of Greek philosophy, especially 
Platonic, Stoic, and Aristotelian theories, at work in the inter- 
pretation of the Jewish scriptures (Aristobulus, Aristeas, 
etc.). All doctrines of any essential importance are included 
by Philo. 

In the philosophy of Philo, the theory of the transcen- 
dence of God is more distinct than in any other form of 
Alexandrian thought. God is so far beyond all fmiteness 
that he can be defined only negatively through the denial 
of every empirical quality (a7roto?), and wholly abstractly, 
as an absolute Being (to ov, — according to the Platonic 
principle also to ryevvi/cooTaTov^). This absolute Being is 
beyond all human ideas of perfectness, even beyond virtue 
and wisdom. Nevertheless the divine Being is the force 
that forms the universe by his goodness and rules it with 
his might. 1 Since God cannot enter into direct relations 
with impure and evil matter which in contrast to him 
is passive, potencies (Bwd/jbecs;) go out from him with which 

1 The references here are similar to those in the writing nepl Koafxov. 



348 HISTORY OE ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

he forms and directs the world. These (Stoical) potencies 
were identified on the one hand with the Platonic Ideas, and, 
on the other, with the angels of the Jewish religion. Their 
unity, however, is the Logos, the second God, the con- 
tent, on the one hand, of all original Ideas ( X0709 ivhidOeros 
= o-o(/)ta), and, on the other, of the teleological formative 
forces (X0705 TTpofyopLicos) that reveal God's presence in 
the world. 

In man, as the microcosm, the spirit (vovs) in its eternal 
heritage stands in contrast to the body of mortality (crapf ). 
It is so involved by its own guilt that it can only get 
release from the universal sinfulness by divine help. Its 
problem is how to become like the pure spirit of God. Its 
attainment of indifference to all desires, modelled after the 
Stoic apathy, and its purification which rises above this 
ethical ideal into knowledge (the Aristotelian dianoetic 
virtue) are upward steps toward that highest blessedness 
which is only reached in an ecstatic state of- absorption in 
the divine Being, with the full surrender of one's individu- 
ality. This supra-conscious ecstasy (eica-Ta<TL<£) is accorded 
as a revelation and gift of God only to the most perfect 
men. 

Platonic and Stoic thories, and incidentally also the Aris- 
totelian, were mingled in the Philosophy of Philo in the most 
complicated manner. With an abundant employment of the 
Stoic method of allegorical myth-interpretation he read these 
theories into the primitive records of his religion, i. e., into the 
teaching of Moses. He found not only in Moses but in the 
teachings of Greek philosophy that revelation of God to which 
human knowledge alone can never attain. In these religious 
revelations Philo distinguished the corporeal and spiritual, the 
verbal and conceptual sense. God has to reveal himself to 
sensuous man in a manner that man may comprehend. There- 
fore it is the task of philosophy (or theology) to reinterpret the 
religious records into a system of conceptual insight. Compare 
Siegfried, Philo von Alex, als Ausleger des alten Testaments 
(Jena, 1875). 

The later so-called "negative theology," which in Philo re- 



PATRISTICS 349 

garded God as the absolutely inconceivable and inexpressible, 
corresponded to the theory of ecstasy in which also the human 
spirit was conceived to be lifted out of everything limited 
and representable, and thereby itself became God (airoOzovcrdaL, 
deificatio). 

The mediation between the neo-Pythagorean transcendence 
and the Stoic immanence was in the divine potencies. These 
on the one side inhere in God as Ideas, and on the other work 
upon matter as independently active potencies. The Logos has 
also the same specious double aspect of a divine potency and 
an independent personality. The need of a unifying mediation 
between God and the world is consistently conceived in the 
conception of the Logos. 

Finally, in a similar manner, the Platonists of the first 
and second centuries of this era, under the influence of the 
neo-Pythagorean teaching, perfected a mysticism which sub- 
stituted a confident faith in divine revelation for the ethical 
Wisdom of the earlier philosophy. The exponents of this 
are Plutarch of Chaeronea and Apuleius of Madaura. 

See Zeller, V 3 . 203 ff . ; Ueberweg-Heinze, 303 ff . To this 
religious eclectic circle belong the writings current under the 
name of Hermes- Trismegistus. See R. Pietschmann, Hermes 
Trismegistus (Leipzig, 1875). 

Plutarch's philosophical writings (Moralia) form, in the edi- 
tion of Dubner (Paris, 1841), volumes III. and IV. See P. 
Volkmann, Leben, Schriften und Philos. des Plutarch's (2 ed., 
Berlin, 1872) ; E. Dascaritis, Die Psyclwlogie u. Pddagogik des 
Plutarch's (Gotha, 1889) ; C. Giesen, Be Plutarcho contra 
Stoicos disputationibus (Miinster, 1890) ; von Willamowitz- 
Mollendorf, Zu Plutarch, Gastmahl der sieben Weisen (in the 
Hermes, 1890). There belongs in the same connection with the 
philosophical writings of Apuleius (collected by Hildebrand, 
Leipzig, 1842) his well-known romance, the Golden Ass, whose 
sharp satire seems to be based allegorically upon the neo- 
Pythagorean mystic view of the world and life. 

3. Patristics. 

The religious Platonism of the first centuries of our era, 
in the breadth and variety of its assimilations of the most 
different religious convictions, showed a change in the 



350 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

philosophical point of view. Science as well as philosophy 
was placed in the service of a feverish religious need 
Philosophy was no longer to be an ethical art of life but a 
religion. When, on the other hand, science was beginning 
to be weary of the problem, the new religion began its tri- 
umphant march through the ancient world. 

The Gospel originally took no note of science; it was 
neither its friend nor foe, and its attitude to the ancient 
political state was like its attitude to science. It had, nev- 
ertheless, to assume more of a positive relation to both, the 
more it spread, following its own natural impulse among 
the people on the Mediterranean Sea. In both cases the 
course of things was as follows : the Church, in its need of 
self-justification, found itself in positive contact with the 
world, and assimilated gradually the ancient life ; thus 
it finally overcame Greek science as well as the Roman 
state, 1 — an impossible result unless Christianity reacted 
in turn and adopted the essentials of antiquity for its own. 

The philosophical secularizing of the Gospel which went 
on parallel with the organization and political growth of the 
church was called Patristics, and extended from the second 
to the fourth and fifth centuries after Christ. 

Patristics in the general history of philosophy is usually sep- 
arated from the development of ancient thought, and then is 
afterwards generally treated as the beginning of Christian phi- 
losophy. It is not our purpose to pass judgment upon the 
propriety and usefulness of the usual arrangement, when we 
make this sketch deviate from that arrangement, or when we 
draw the most general outlines of Patristic philosophy. This 
sketch is made, not only because the Patristic philosophy be- 
longs in its time relations to antiquity, 2 but the principal reason 

1 See K. J. Neumann, Der romische Staat und die allgemeine Kirche 
bis auf Diokletian, I. (Leipzig, 1890). 

2 These actual relations show themselves so strong that the present 
author develops the arrangement introduced here, in his general Ge- 
schichte der Philosophie ; and he has found them by far the best for the 
exposition of scientific development in the first centuries of our era. 



PATRISTICS 351 

is that in it is to be seen a final development of ancient thought 
corresponding throughout to neo-Platonism. It is obvious that 
all specific theological moments are left out of account, and the 
survey is limited strictly within philosophical bounds. There is 
certainly not much of philosophical originality to be expected 
in this period. Originality can be found to some extent only 
among the Gnostics and in Origen. Patristics is only a variation 
and development of Greek thought, and then only from a re- 
ligious point of view, — a point of view in which ardent long- 
ing has given place to the firm conviction of faith. 

With the text-books on the history of philosophy we must 
compare the following histories of the church and of dogmatics, 
if we would understand this subject. See Harnack, Lelirbuch 
der Dogmengeschichte, Vol. I. (Freiburg i. B., 1886); Deutinger, 
Geist der Christlichen Ueberlieferung (Regensburg, 1850-51); 
A. Ritschl, Die Entstehung der altkatolische Kirche (2 ed., 
Bonn, 1857) ; F. Chr. Baur, Das Ghristentum der ersten drei 
Jahrhunderte (Tubingen, 1860) ; Joh. Alzog, Grundriss der 
Patrologie (3 ed., Freiburg i. B., 1876) ; Alb. Stockl, Geschichte 
der Philosophie der patristisehen Zeit (Wtirzburg, 1859) ; Joh. 
Huber, Die Philosophie der Kirchenvater (Munich, 1859) ; E. 
Havet, Le christianisme et ses origines (2 vol., Paris, 1871) ; 
Fr. Overbeck, Tiber die Anfange der patristisehen Litteratur (in 
Hist. Zeitschrift, 1882). The sources of Patristic literature 
are most completely collected by J. P. Migne in his collection : 
Patrologioe cursus completus (Paris, since 1860). 

The occasion for Christianity taking some position toward 
Greek science arose partly out of its polemically apologetic 
interests, partly out of those that were dogmatic and con- 
structive. With its missionary spirit Christianity stepped 
out upon a scientifically blase world in which even the less 
educated people had learned to flee from their religious 
doubt to philosophy, and in which philosophy was trying to 
vouchsafe to those in religious need a contentment that 
had been lost to the world. Christianity entered at the 
same time into the religious controversies where, under 
these circumstances, the victory would belong to that party 
which absorbed most completely the culture of antiquity. 
It therefore followed that the new religion had to defend 
its faith theoretically against the mockery and contempt of 



352 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY. 

heathen wisdom, but at the same time it had to vindicate 
itself as the fulfilment of human need of salvation. The 
Apologists undertook to accomplish this. 

On the other hand, the unity and purity of the Christian 
conceptions threatened to be lost with the spreading of the 
community, on account of the many ways in which those 
conceptions came into contact with the religious elements 
of the Grseco-Roman and Oriental philosophies. The church 
needed for its inner constitution not only the simple regula 
fidei, but also a fundamentally scientific expression of this 
formula, a fixed and conceptually developed system of dog- 
matics. The Gnostics were the first to attempt such a 
philosophical structure for Christianity. But inasmuch as 
they at the first step made a striking departure from the 
rule of faith, the solution of their problem fell into the 
hands of the Alexandrian School of Catechists, which cre- 
ated for Christianity its scientific dogma from the ripest 
thought of the Grecian world. 

51. To a philosophical vindication of Christianity, natur- 
ally only such members of that communion could be called 
who had a mastery over the thought of Greek and Roman 
philosophy. But even these men, if their purpose was to 
rationalize the new religion, would be necessarily inclined 
to bring the content of the new faith as near as possible to 
the results of ancient science, and to read into the old 
philosophy the teachings of the new faith. Unintention- 
ally, therefore, the Gospel was hellenized by the Apolo- 
gists, the most important of whom are Justin Martyr, 
Athenagoras, and, among the Romans, Minucius Felix, 
and, later, Lactantius. 

Corpus Apologetarum Christianorum seculi secundi, published 
by Otto (Jena, since 1842). 

Of the predecessors of Justin, we must notice Aristides of 
Athens especially, whose fragments (published in Venice, 1878) 
contain a philosophical argumentation for Christianity as a re- 
vealed monotheism. 



PATRISTICS 353 

Flavius Justin Martyr of Sichem (Flavia Neapolis), in Sa- 
maria, a man of Greek origin and culture, after investigating 
several contemporaneous systems of science, came to the con- 
viction that only the Christian faith was the true philosophy. 
He suffered death at Rome (163-166) for defence of this doc- 
trine. Of his writings (see first volumes of Otto's edition) the 
Dialogue with the Jew Triphon and both the Apologies are gen- 
uine. See K. Semisch, Justin der Martyrer (Breslau, 1840-42) ; 
B. Aube, St. Justin, Philosophe et Martyr (Paris, 1861) ; M. v. 
Engelhardt, Das Christenthum Justin d. Martyrer (Erlangen, 
1858). Justin's two Apologies have been translated into Ger- 
man and analyzed by H. Veit. 

Athenagoras of Athens addressed to Marcus Aurelius (176— 
177) his 7rp€crf3eia irepl Xpio-ncuw. There is also preserved his 
Ttepi dvao-rao-eoos rwv veKpw (in Otto's edition, Vol. VII.). See 
Th. A. Ck:j*isse, De Athenag. vita scriptis et doctrina (Leyden, 
1819) ; F. Schurbring, Die Philosophie des Athenag. (Bern, 
1882). 

The conception which Theophilus of Antioch (about 180) 
embodied in his address to Autolycus in writing (Corpus, Vol. 
VIII.) is related to the above. The Apology of Melito of Sardis 
and Apollinaris of Hierapolis is likewise related. 

The apologetic dialogue, Octavius (about 200), of Minucius 
Felix (published in the Corpus scriptorum ecclesiasticorum lati- 
norum, by C. Halm, Vienna, 1867) presents Christianity nearly 
entirely in the sense of ethical rationalism. See A. Soulet, 
Essai sur V Octavius de Min. Fel. (Strassburg, 1867) ; R. Kiihl, 
Der Oktaiius d. Min. Fel. (Leipzig, 1882). 

Similar ideas are found in beautiful form, but without philo- 
sophical significance in the rhetorician Firmianus Lactantius 
(died about 325). He undertook in his chief work, the Distitu- 
tiones divlnce, to make a system of Christian morals, whose 
individual characteristics were to be found strewn in Greek 
philosophy, which nevertheless in their totality could only be 
conceived as ultimately grounded through a divine illumina- 
tion. See J. G. Th. Miiller, Quazstiones Dactantieai (Gottingen, 
1875). 

These hellenizing apologists sought to prove that Chris- 
tianity was the only "true philosophy," in that it guaranteed 
not only correct knowledge but also right living and true 
holiness here and hereafter. They based the pre-eminence 
of Christian philosophy upon the perfect revelation of God 
in Jesus Christ. For only through divine inspiration does 

23 



354 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

the rational come to man, who is buried in the wicked 
sense-world and is in the toils of daemons. Nevertheless 
inspiration has been active from the beginning in human 
life. Everything that the great teachers of Greece — Py- 
thagoras, Socrates, Plato — have known of the truth, they 
have owed not solely to their own reason. They have, in 
part, got it directly through divine revelation, and, in part, 
indirectly through the inspired teaching of Moses and the 
prophets, whom they were said to have used. But all these 
revelations are only sporadic and embryonic (\6yos cnrep- 
fiari/cds'). In Jesus first is the divine Logos perfectly and 
completely revealed and become man. For the Godhead, 
who is nameless and inexpressible in itself, has unfolded 
his entire essence in his Son. 

The peculiarity of the teaching of these men, especially of 
Justin, is the thoroughgoing and detailed identification of rea- 
son and revelation. The way was prepared in the Stoic Logos- 
concept for this and in its transformation at the hands of 
Philo, in which the materialistic character of the Xoyos was 
stripped off and only the omnipresent character of the divine 
spirit in nature and history remained. When, therefore, Justin 
found nearly all the moments of Christian truth, the ethical 
bearing of which he strongly emphasized, already in ancient 
philosophy, when he opined that something of the truth of sal- 
vation as a natural endowment (e/^vrov) has come to all people 
by divine grace, he was regarding as inspired what is natural 
and rational according to Greek science. Therefore in that 
teaching approved by him and sanctioned as Christian, he 
found partly an immediate revelation, partly an appropriation 
of the statements of Moses and the prophets, of whom he 
thought Plato had ample knowledge. Philo had already done 
this before Justin. On the other hand, in contrast to the in- 
definite search for a revelation which characterized neo-Pythago- 
reanism and the other forms of mystic Platonism, the Apologists 
had the enormous advantage of a faith in a determinate, abso- 
lute, positive, and historical revelation in Jesus Christ. In their 
representing him, they united the Logos conception of Philo 
with the ethical religious meaning of the Jewish ideal of a 
Messiah. They designated him, therefore, as the "second 
God/' created by the Father, in whom divine revelation had 
been incarnated. 



PATRISTICS 355 

The metaphysical dualism of the Apologists stood in intimate 
relation to their theory of inspiration. They metaphysically set 
the a//.op</>os vXrj over against the Godhead, who forms the world 
through the Logos, entirely in a Platonic and neo-Pythagorean 
sense. The end of this is to conceive matter as in every way 
reasonless and bad. Thus results, as their fundamental prin- 
ciple, the following : the Logos, as the content of divine revela- 
tion, has appeared in Jesus Christ the man in order to redeem 
man fallen in sin, and to establish the kingdom of God. 

52. The desire to transmute faith (ttio-tl?) and its au- 
thoritative content into conceptual knowledge (yvwcns) be- 
gan very early in the Christian communion. The Pauline 
epistles show this. It was completed in a larger way at 
the beginning of the second century within the Syriac- 
Alexandrian circles of Christians. Here neo-Pythagorean, 
Platonic, and Philonic thought met in a heightened fancy, 
the occasion of which was the Syriac mixture of Oriental 
and Occidental cults and mythologies. The rivalry of re- 
ligions was reduced in the presentation of these Gnostics 
to a Christian philosophy of religion, whose disciples, being 
chiefly the members of the communion steeped in Hellenic 
culture, constituted themselves in many localities as unique 
Mysteries. They perfected an idealism with the fantastic 
mythological formulas of the East, and lost, on this account, 
all sympathy with the majority of the Christian commun- 
ion, so that they were finally set aside as heretics. The 
leaders of Gnosticism were Saturninus, Carpocrates, Basil- 
ides, Yalentinus, and Bardesanes. 

A. W. Neander, Genetische Entwickelung der vornehmsten 
gnostischen Systeme (Berlin, 1818) ; E. Matter, Histoire critique 
du gnosticisme (2 ed., Paris, 1843) ; F. Chr. Baur, Die christ- 
liche Gnosis oder Religionsphilosophie (Tubingen, 1835) ; A. 
Lipsius, Der Gnostizismus (Leipzig, 1860 ; separately published 
in Ersch u. Gruber, Vol. 71) ; H. S. Mansel, The Gnostic 
Heresies (London, 1875) ; A. Harnack, Zur Quellenkritik der 
Geschichte des Gnostizismus (Leipzig, 1873) ; A. Hilgenfeld, 
Die Ketzergeschichte des Urchristentums (Jena, 1884) ; M. Joel, 
Blicke in die Religionsgeschichte zu Anfang des zweiten Jahr- 
hunderts (Breslau/ 1880-1883). 



356 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

Of the conditions of life of the eminent Gnostics but little 
is known. Only very few fragments of their writings are 
preserved. Among these is particularly the tuo-tcs o-ofyia of an 
unknown author from the circle of Valentinians (published by 
Petermann, Berlin, 1851). As for the rest, the knowledge we 
have of the doctrine of these men is limited to what their op- 
ponents say about them, especially Irenaeus (eAeyxos kol dva- 
rpoirrj tt)s if/evSoivvjxov yvuicrcujs, Leipzig, 1853), HippolytlTS (eXey^o? 
Kara 7raow atpecrecoi/, Oxford, 1851), Justin, Tertullian (adversus 
Valentinianos), Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Eusebius, 
Augustine, and Saturninus, who came from Antioch and taught 
in the time of Hadrian. Carpocrates flourished about 130 in 
Alexandria, and was contemporary to Basilides the Syrian. 
The career of the most notable of these men, Valentinus, falls 
somewhat later. Valentinus lived at Rome and died in Cyprus 
about 160. Bardesanes was born in Mesopotamia and lived 
155-225. 

See Uhlhorn, Das basilidianische System (Gottingen, 1855) ; 
G. Heinrici, Die valentinianische Gnosis u. die heil. Schrift 
(Berlin, 1871) ; Fr. Lipsius, Valentinus u. seine Schule {Jahrb. 
f.prot. Theol., 1887); G. Kostlin, Das gnost. System des Bucks 
7rto-rt? o-o<f>Ld (Theol. Jahrb. Tubingen, 1854) ; A. Hilgenfeld, Bar- 
desanes der letzte Gnostiker (Leipzig, 1864). 

The fundamental principle which secures to the Gnostics 
a permanent place in the history of philosophy in spite of 
the sensualistic and mythological fancifulness with which 
they developed this principle, is their plan on a great scale 
of a philosophy of history. This plan originated in their 
fundamental religious thought. Since Christianity wished 
to conceive itself as a victory both over Judaism and 
Heathenism, the Gnostic interpreted the battle of religions 
allegorically as a battle of the gods of these religions. 
They interpreted this battle intellectually also into a theory 
that upon the appearance of the Redeemer not only the de- 
velopment of the human race but also the history of the uni- 
verse reached its denouement. This denouement, however, 
is the fundamental part of Christianity : the redemption of 
the wicked through the perfect revelation of the highest God 
through Jesus Christ. 

The transformation of all nature philosophy into ethical- 



PATRISTICS 357 

religious categories is consequently the fundamental form 
of the philosophy of the Gnostics. They undertook at first 
with a radical one-sidedness to conceive the universe en- 
tirely from a religious point of view. They thought of the 
cosmic process as a strife between good and evil, which is 
ended in the redemption of the world by Christ, giving the 
good the victory. 

So far as this antithesis was logically conceived, it ap- 
peared in the form of a neo-Pythagorean dualism of spirit 
and matter. In the mythological embodiment of it, how- 
ever, which took up by far the greatest space in the Gnos- 
tic systems, the heathen daemons and the god of the Old 
Testament, who had the form of the Platonic demiurge, 
were considered the powers of this world to be overcome. 
They were brought into opposition to the true God, who 
conquered them by the revelation of Jesus, to the same ex- 
tent as other religions are brought in opposition to Chris- 
tianity. 

The beginnings of the Greek natural sciences were of such a 
nature that there seemed to be no possibility of giving a satis- 
factory answer, even in the great teleological systems, to the 
question of the significance of historical development in its en- 
tirety. The science that was wanting to them was the philosophy 
of history, and of this want the world must needs become con- 
scious when ancient culture was in its senility. The Gnostics 
are therefore the first philosophers of history. Since there 
stands as the centre of their philosophy of history the Christian 
principle of the salvation of the world by Jesus Christ, they 
must be acknowledged as philosophers of Christian history and 
religion, in spite of their deviation from later orthodoxy. 

The conquest of Judaism by Christianity was thus mytholo- 
gized by men like Cerinthus, the Syrian Cerdo, and particu- 
larly Marcion and his pupil Apelles. The God of the Old 
Testament who formed the world and gave the Judaic law was 
conceived as a daemon lower than the highest God, who was 
revealed by Christ. The former is recognizable in nature and 
in the Old Testament ; the latter is inexpressible and unknow- 
able ; the former is only just, the latter is good, — an ethical 
distinction emphasized by Marcion particularly. 



358 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

This way of representing things led the Gnostics into a dual- 
ism between good and bad, spirit and matter. The dualism be- 
tween spirit and matter was developed in a true Hellenic 
fashion with a most decided leaning to neo-Pythagorean syncre- 
tism by Carpocrates, but by Saturninus, and particularly by 
Basiiides (see Irenaeus), by means of Oriental mythology. Accord- 
ing to the astronomical du'alism of the Pythagorean and Aris- 
totelian thought, the space between God and the world is filled 
by whole races of daemons and angels that are arranged ac- 
cording to numerical symbols. The lowest of these is far 
enough distant from the divine perfectness so that the lowest 
can have relationship with the impure material, and as demiurge 
form the world. In this world then, as already in the spirit 
world, the battle of the perfect and imperfect, of light and 
darkness, waged until the Aoyos, the vots, Christ, the most per- 
fect of the aeons, came down to the world of the flesh to re- 
lease the spirit shut up in matter. This is the fundamental 
idea of Gnosticism, and its different mythological shadings are 
of no philosophical importance. 

Their anthropology in a corresponding manner distinguished 
in man the material of sense (vA.77), the daemonic soul (lio^ 7 ?)* 
and the divine spirit (Tn-cv/xa). According, then, to the preva- 
lence of one of these three elements man is either spiritual, 
psychic, or material, — a distinction which was incidentally 
identified by Valentiuus with that between Christianity, Ju- 
daism, and Heathendom. 

This dualism originated apparently in the Alexandrian, that 
is, the Hellenic, circle, and assimilated later some analogies from 
Parseeism. Manichaeism arose later (third century) from the 
influence of the Gnostics upon the religions of the East. It 
was an extreme dualistic religion, and played an important role 
in the intellectual controversies of the following centuries (F. 
Chr. Baur, Das manichaische Eeligionssystem (Tubingen, 
1831) ; O. Flugel, Mani u. seine Lehre (Leipzig, 1862) ; A. 
Geyler, Das System des Manichaismus (Jena, 1875). 

This dualism accorded with the Christian's ethical convic- 
tions as well as with those growing out of his need of redemp- 
tion ; but not with his metaphysical principles, which could 
recognize no other power in the world besides the living God 
and be consistent with its Jewish traditions. The monistic 
feeling naturally turned away from the dualism of Greek 
thought and tried to overcome it. Later forms of Gnos- 
ticism approached Monism, which predominated among the 
orthodox churchmen. At the same time it sought to explain 
dualism by a theory of emauation from the divinity, and it had 



PATRISTICS 359 

as its model the Stoic theory of the change of the cosmic fire 
into its elements. It itself in turn thus became the model for 
neo-Platonism. The school of Basilides, if the statement of 
Hippolytus refers to it, followed out this motive, and it was 
perhaps influenced by the notable Gnostic, Valentinus. 

Valeutinus undertook first to transfer the antithesis to the 
original divine being ( TrpoTrdrajp) . He called it the eternal 
Depth (fivOos), which created out of its underived and unspeak- 
able content (o-Lyrj _ eWota) in the first place the TrXr/pwixa, the 
world of Ideas. From this world, one Idea, o-o^ta, falls on 
account of its unbridled longing for the Father and creates 
the sense world * through the demiurge. There was here at- 
tempted for the first time in entirely mythical form the conquest 
of Greek dualism and the establishment of an idealistic mon- 
ism, which was a fantastic precreation of neo-Platonism. 

In their teaching and their cult the Gnostic mysteries 
were so far distant from the Christian Church which had 
been continuously developing its organization, that Gnosti- 
cism was placed under the ban as heresy. Its bold phi- 
losophy of religion called forth on the one hand an ex- 
treme reaction against turning faith into a science, and 
on the other a polemical limitation of dogma to the 
simplest content of the regula fidei. Tatian and Tertul- 
lian are to be named here : the one as the radical cham- 
pion of Orientalism, which beheld in all Greek culture the 
work of the Devil ; the other as the ingenious and narrow- 
minded opponent of rationalism. Tertullian pushed the 
anthropological dualism so far as to maintain that the 
truth in the Gospel is confirmed just because it contradicts 
human reason. Credo quia absurdum. Contemporaneously 
with Tertullian and Tatian, Irenseus (140-200) and his 
pupil Hippolytus combated the anti-Judaic philosophy of 
history of the Gnostics with the Pauline theory of a divine 
method of education. According to this theory the Judaic 
Law was " our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ." They 
also formulated a religious philosophy of history in that 

[} Windelband, History of Philosophy, 251, n. 2. — Tr.] 



360 HISTORY OE ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

they conceived the historical process as a teleological series 
of acts of divine redemption, which expresses in the con- 
ception of the church (eiackno-ia) the ideal community of 
mankind. This anti-Gnosticism was not able to maintain 
itself without help from Greek philosophy (Stoicism in 
Tertullian, Philonism inlrenseus and Hippolytus) and even 
from Gnosticism itself, especially in Tatian, who later 
went over entirely to Valentinian Gnosticism. 

Tatian was an Assyrian. His treatise, irpbs "EWrjvas, which 
used the Justinian reflections for a polemic against all phi- 
losophy and set up against the Greek pretended wisdom the 
faith of the barbarians, is to be found in Otto's collection, 
Vol. VI. (Jena, 1851), printed lately by E. Schwartz (Leipzig, 
1888). See Daniel, Tertullian der Apolo get (Halle, 1837). 

Tertullian (160-220), in his last years champion of the Mon- 
tanists, is the Christian Stoic. His strict, relentless morality 
and his abrupt contrast of sensationalism and morality is con- 
joined with a fantastic materialism and sensualism. His 
numerous writings, partly apologetic, partly polemic, partly hor- 
tatory, are published by F. Oehler (Leipzig, 1853 ft.). Compare 
A. W. Neander, Antignosticus ; Geist des Tertullian und Ein- 
leitung in dessen Sehriften (2 ed., Berlin, 1849) ; A. Hauck, 
Tertullian's Leben und Sehriften (Erlangen, 1877) ; G. R. 
Hauschild, Tertullian 's Psychologie und Erkenntniss-Theorie 
(Leipzig, 1880). 

This same spirit, but without the paradoxical originality of 
Tertullian, occurred later in the African Rhetorician, Arnobius, 
who wrote his thesis Adversus gentes about 300 (published by 
A. Reifferscheid in the Corpus scriptorum eccl. lat., Vienna, 
1875). He and Tertullian uphold in a typical way the theory 
that orthodoxy, intending to demonstrate authoiity, grace, 
and revelation to be absolutely necessary for men, suppresses 
the natural intelligence as far as possible, and Makes com- 
mon cause with sensualism and its skeptical consequences. 

Excepting some fragments, the writings of Ireaseus exist 
only in Latin translations. See Bohringer, Die Kirehe Christi 
(Zurich, 1861), I. 271 ff. ; H. Ziegler, Irenaeus, der Bischof von 
Lyon (Berlin, 1871) ; A. Gouillond, St. Irenceus et son temps 
(Lyon, 1876). The work of Hippolytus, whose first book was 
earlier than the ^iXoo-o^ov^eva of Origen, is published by Duncker 
and Schneidewin (Gottingen, 1859). See Bunsen, Hippolytus 
und seine Zeit (2 vols., Leipzig, 1852 f .). 



PATRISTICS 361 

53. The scientific statement of the religion of the Chris- 
tian church likewise took final form in Alexandria in the 
use of the Gnostic and the Apologetic theories by the 
School of Catechists. Clement of Alexandria (ahout 200) 
and Origen, the founder of Christian theology, were the 
leaders of this school. 

Guerike, De schola, quae, Alexandria floruit catechetica (Halle, 
1824 f.) ; C. W. Hasselbach, De schola, quce Alexandria floruit 
catechetica (Stettin, 1826) ; further the writings of E. Matter, J. 
Simon, I. Vacherot. 

The three chief writings that are preserved of Clement are 
Aoyos irpoTpeiTTLKos 7rpos "EAA-^j/as, 7rai8ayooyo<j and or/owyaarets. The 
last has especial significance in the history of philosophy. 
Clement's dependence on Philo appears clearly in his teaching. 
It is mutatis mutandis the application of the principles of Philo 
to Christendom, and it is related to Christendom in exactly the 
same way as Philo's teaching to Judaism. Although there- 
fore not throughout philosophically independent, Clement has 
the great significance that through him and the more orig- 
inal form of his theory in Origen, eclectic Platonism, strongly 
mixed as it was with Stoical elements, was definitely crystal- 
lized into Christian dogma. See Dahne, De yvwo-ei dementis 
Alex, et de vestigiis neoplatonicoe philosophic in ea obviis (Leip- 
zig, 1831) ; J. Reinkens, De flde et yi/dxrei Clementis (Breslau, 
1850) and De Clemente presbyter o Alexandrino (Breslau, 1851) ; 
Lammer, Clement Alex, de Aoyw doctrina (Leipzig, 1855) ; 
Hebert-Duperron, Essai sur la polemique et la philosophie de 
Clement (Paris, 1855) ; J. Cognat, Clement d' 'Alexandrie sa 
doctrine et sa polemique (Paris, 1858) ; H. Treische, De yvwo-ei 
Clementis Alex. (Jena, 1871). 

Origen (185-254), whose surname was the Adamantine, 
appeared early as teacher in the School of Catechists that had 
been directed by Clement. He attended afterward the lectures 
of Ammonius Saccus (§ 54). He had to endure much persecu- 
tion on account of his teaching, and, driven from Alexandria, 
he spent his old age in Cassarea and Tyre. The most important 
philosophical writings of his are vrcpt apx&v and Kara KeAo-ov. 
Celsus, a Platonic philosopher, wrote between 170 and 180 his 
aknOrjs Aoyos, which was partly a reconstruction of the opposing 
thesis of Origen, and contained an arsenal of verbal weapons 
against Christianity. See Th. Keim, Celsus' s wahres Wort (Zurich, 
1873) ; E. Pelagant, fitude sur Celse (Lyon, 1878) ; Origen's 
thesis concerning Principles is preserved almost exclusively in 



362 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

the Latin version by Rufinus. See Migne, vol. 11-17 ; G. Tho- 
masius, Origenes (Niirnberg, 1837) ; Redepenning, Origines, 
eine Darstellung seines Lebens u, seine?' Lehre (2 vols., Bonn, 
1841-46) ; J. Denis, De la philosophie d'Origene (Paris, 1884) ; 
A. Harnack, Dogmengeschichte, I. 512 ff. 

Anticipated thus by Clement, Christian theology was 
founded by Origen as a scientific system. For if the church 
then and later took offence at some of Origen's doctrines 
and supplanted them, yet his philosophical point of view 
and his conceptual structure remained in a manner authori- 
tative for the permanent foundation of Christian dogma in 
the shape into which he had developed it from the ideas of 
the Alexandrian school. Origen has the significance that 
in trying to transform irians into yvwa^ (he called it also 
o-ocjyia), he was not carried away from the Christian fun- 
damental principles by mythical speculation or by philo- 
sophical theories. So far as its purpose is concerned, his 
teaching is then wholly parallel to Gnosticism. But while 
the Gnostic boldly and deliberately created a separate and 
individual form of Christianity, the Alexandrian school of 
Catechists gradually began a scientific organization of the 
universal Christian faith from within itself, and Origen 
drew with steady hand the fundamental outlines within 
whose limits later detailed developments were made. 

The regula fidei and the canon accepted by the church of the 
Holy Writ of the Old and New Testament were therefore for 
Origen the source and measure of religious knowledge. The 
science of faith is the methodical explanation of the Gospel. 
After the manner of Philo, Origen said this method consisted in 
the translation of historical into conceptucd relations. The 
historical element in revelation is only the " somatic " meaning 
of revelation, and is intelligible to the masses. The " psychic " 
meaning of revelation is its moral interpretation, and is especially 
applicable to the Old Testament. Above both is the " pneu- 
matic " meaning of the philosophical teaching expressed in Holy 
Writ. If thereby an esoteric is distinguished from an exoteric 
Christianity (xpicmai/os o-w/xariKos) , Origen justified himself by 
claiming that revelation, equal everywhere in its content, is 



PATRISTICS 363 

suited in its form to the different endowments and stages of 
development of the mind. As, therefore, the true spirit of the 
Old Testament was first revealed in the Gospel, so ever behind 
the New Testament is the eternal pneumatic gospel to be 
sought, which is now, for the first time, revealed only to a few, 
by the grace of God. 

As the leading principle of the teaching of Origen, stands 
the concept of God as the pure spirit, who in perfect 
changelessness and unity (em? — novas) above all Beings 
(iire/cetva r% over las) is recognizable as the everlasting 
author of all things, but in his entire fulness transcends all 
human knowledge. His essential characteristic is the also- 
lute causality of his will. Creativeness is an essential ele- 
ment of his being, and therefore his creative activity is as 
eternal as himself. On account of his unique unchange- 
ableness, nevertheless, his creative activity cannot deal 
directly with ever-changing individual things, but only 
with the eternal revelation of his own essence, with his 
image the Logos (o Xoyos). The Logos is expressly con- 
ceived by Origen as a person, as an hypostasized being. 
He is indeed not o 0eo?, but still 0eo?, a Sevrepo? 0eo?, and 
the Holy Spirit stands related to him as he is related to the 
Father. The X070? is related to the world as the IBia 
ISecbv, the archetype according to which the divine will 
creates all things. Creation then is also everlasting, and 
made up of the endless number of spirits who are destined 
to participate in divine blessedness, and all of whom shall 
finally become part of the divine essence (deoTroioviievov). 
They are endowed, however, with freedom, to which is due 
the fact that they each to a greater or less degree, in his 
own manner, fall away from the divine essence. For their 
purification God created matter, and thus do the spirits in 
heaven become materialized and graded according to their 
worth : the angels, the stars, mankind, and evil daemons. 

In a characteristic and specifically Christian way, and in 
opposition to Hellenic intellectualism, Origen emphasized the 



364 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

will and the metaphysical meaning attached to it. The will of 
God appears here as the eternal necessary development of his 
being, but the wills of the spirits, as free temporal choice. The 
two stand in a mutual relation that in the Platonic system 
obtains between ovcrca and yeVecrt?. In contrast to the unchange- 
ableness and unity of the divine will, the freedom of will of the 
spirits includes the principle of variety, of change, in a word, 
of nature processes. Freedom is the ground both of sin and 
of materiality. So Origen made it possible to join with his 
conception of the absolute causality of God, which conception 
forbids the originality of matter, the existence of wickedness, 
sense, and imperfection. He reconciled ethical transcendence 
with physical immanence, — God as creator, but not creator of 
evil. Faith in divine omnipotence and the consciousness of sin 
are the two fundamental antithetical principles of Christian 
metaphysics. Origen mediated between them by his conception 
of freedom. 

Eternal creation involves the acceptation of an endless series 
of aeons, and of world systems, wherein fall and redemption 
are continually repeated in new individuals. Yet this difficult 
point is not further treated by Origen, but is avoided on ac- 
count of the concentration of his attention upon the realm of 
spirits. 

The fallen spirits strive to rise from matter, to which 
they are condemned for purification, and to return to their 
divine source. In their own freedom do they aspire on 
account of the divine essence within them, which is never 
entirely lost, however deeply they may be abased. But 
they do not have to act without the help of grace, which 
was always active in man as a revelation from heaven, and 
is revealed perfectly in the person of Jesus. One recog- 
nizes that a propedeutic value was given by Origen here, 
after the manner of the Apologists, to the heathen philoso- 
phy, especially to Platonism and Stoicism. The eternal 
X070? has connected itself with the blameless tyvyr) °f Jesus 
in a divine-human unity. Through his suffering he has 
presented redemption as a temporal fact for the whole 
body of believers, but through his essence the true illumina- 
tion has been brought to those especially chosen (the pneu- 
matically inspired). With his help, the eternal spirit has 



NEO-PLATONISM 365 

attained different grades of redemption : faith, — the reli- 
gious understanding of the perceptual world, — knowledge 
of the X070?, and finally absolute absorption in the God- 
head. Through the conjoined action of freedom and grace, 
all souls shall finally be redeemed, material existence shall 
vanish, and salvation of all things be perfected in God 
(d7roKard(TTaat<;). 

These are the conceptual principles of Christian theology, as 
Origen developed them. They show that Christianity seized 
the ideas of ancient philosophy and revised it with its own 
religious principle. The changes which dogmatic develop- 
ment made in the system pertain especially to eschatology 
and Christology. As to Christology, Origen emphasized more 
the cosmological than the soteriological aspect of the Aoyos, and 
neither is fully developed. The battles waged over his theory 
in the third and fourth centuries until the perfect consolidation 
of the Catholic dogma, are attributable to specific theological 
motives, and change none of his fundamental philosophical 
principles. 



4. Neo-Platonism. 

The Hellenistic thought that ran parallel to Christian 
scientific faith was neo-Platonism. Out of the same circles 
of Alexandrian culture, in which all the forms of Greek 
science and all religions met, arose two contemporaneous 
theories, — the theory of Origen and that of Plotinus. As 
we can see in Gnosticism a kind of precreation of Christian 
theology, so in the eclectic Platonism influenced by Philo 
(particularly in Numenius) can we also see a preparation 
for neo-Platonism. 

Neo-Platonism and Christian theology had a community 
of purpose and a common origin. Both were scientific 
systems that methodically developed a religious conviction 
and sought to prove that this conviction was the only true 
source of salvation for the soul needing redemption. 

But there is a great difference between the two. Chris- 



366 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

tian theology was not only supported, but also gradually 
regulated, by the religious consciousness of a community 
organizing itself into a church. Neo-Platonism was a doc- 
trine thought out and defended by individual philoso- 
phers, which spread to associations of scholars, and then 
sought to profit by contact with all kinds of mysteries. 
Christian theology was the scientific external form of a 
faith that had already mightily developed. Neo-Platonism 
was an erudite religion, which tried incidentally to assimi- 
late all the then existing cults. Although the scientific 
strength of neo-Platonism was certainly not less than that 
of Christianity, this attempt at assimilation was the cause 
of its downfall. 

The historical unfolding of neo-Platonism was in three 
stages. In the first stage it was essentially a scientific 
theory. In the next it was a systematic theology of poly- 
theism, and in this it was in pronounced opposition to 
Christianity. After it had gone to pieces in this way, it 
sought in its third stage to become a scholastic recapitula- 
tion of the entire Greek philosophy. We are accustomed 
to designate these different phases as the Alexandrian, the 
Syrian, and the Athenian schools, and to place, as the head 
of each respectively, Plotinus, Jamblichus, and Proclus. 

See E. Matter, J. Simon, and Vacherot; Barthelemy Saint- 
Hilaire, Sur le concours ouvert par I'academie, etc., sur 
Vecole oV 'Alexandria (Paris, 1845) ; K. Vogt, Neoplatonismus u. 
Christentum (Berlin, 1836) ; K. Steinhart (in Pauly's Realen- 
cyklopadie des Mass. Altertums) ; R. Hamerling, Ein Wort uber 
die Neuplatoniker (with examples translated into German, 
Triest, 1858) ; H. Kellner, Hellenismus u. Christentum oder die 
geistige Reaktion des antiken Heidentums gegen das Christen- 
tum (Cologne, 1866) ; A. Harnack, Dogmengeschichte, I. 663 ff. 

54. The founder of neo-Platonism was Plotinus, born 
204 A. D. in Lycopolis in Egypt. He received his philo- 
sophical education in Alexandria, especially at the hands 
of a certain Ammonius Saccus. He took part in the expe- 



NEO-PLATONISM 367 

dition of the Emperor Gordian in his Persian campaign in 
order to pursue scientific studies in the Orient. About 244 
he appeared with great eclat as a teacher in Rome, and 
died in 269 at a country estate in Campania. Among 
his pupils were Amelius, and especially the publisher of 
his documents, Porphyry. 

Ancient traditions designate the porter Ammonius (175- 
242) as the founder of neo-Platonism. He abandoned Chris- 
tianity for Hellenism, and held impressive lectures iu Alexan- 
dria. Among his pupils were said to be, besides Plotinus and 
the Christian Origen, Herennius (Erennius), Origen the 
Platonist, and the rhetorician and critic Longinus (213-273). 
Nothing is, however, at all certain about the teaching of Am- 
monius, and these so-called pupils travel such theoretically 
different ways that there is no good reason to speak of Ammo- 
nius as the founder of the specific philosophy of Plotinus. See 
W. Lyngg, Die Lehre des Ammonius (publication of Gesell- 
schaft d. Wissenschaft at Christiania, 1874). 

The Platonist Origen is not the Patristic, as G-. A. Heigl 
supposes. See Der Bericht des Porphyrins uber Origenes 
(Regensburg, 1835) ; G-. Helferich, Untersuehungen aus der 
Gebiet der klass. Alterthumswissenschaft (Heidelberg, 1860). 
He asserted (probably in opposition to Numenius) the identity 
of God with that of the world-builder. See his writing 6Vt /xwos 
TroLTjTrjs 6 fiacnXevs. Compare Zeller, V 3 . 461, 2. 

Ets ra [xcTcufivo-LKd is the name of a document transmitted 
under the name of Herennius, but it is a compilation of much 
later origin. See A. Mai, Classicorum Auctorum, IX. ; E. Heitz 
(Berlin Sitzungsberichte, 1889). 

Longinus, who taught in Athens, held fast to the pure Pla- 
tonic teaching of the reality of Ideas independent of the 
Spirit, and was opposed to Plotinus' interpretation. In spite 
of many doubters on the point, he is presumably the author of 
a treatise under his name, irepl tyovs (published by J. Vahlen, 
1887). The rhetorical phases of the subject seem to have been 
of chief interest to the author ; yet the treatise has real value 
beyond this, for it developed in the highest spiritual and intel- 
lectual manner the aesthetic concept of the sublime as not only 
independent of the idea of the beautiful and co-ordinate with it, 
but also in its numerous variations and applications. This 
treatise had a very great influence on the aesthetic theory and 
criticism of later time. 



368 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

If, in comparing the great systems of Origen and Plotinns, 
one wishes to draw a conclusion as to the doctrine of their 
common teacher, one meets only the most universal principles 
of the Alexandrian religion-philosophies, and even then perhaps 
only the fundamental principles of overcoming metaphysically 
the dualism which forms the presupposition of that philosophy. 
There is not even a hint that would let us trace these philoso- 
phies back to Ammonias. He existed rather in the air, so far 
as the development of Alexandrian thought was concerned. 
The form of Ammonius is historically as colorless as perchance 
the view ascribed to him that Aristotelianism and Platonism are 
in essential agreement. See Zeller, V 3 . 454 ff. 

Plotinus found so great recognition in the highest circles of 
Rome that he desired to found a city of philosophers in Cam- 
pania, with the help of the Emperor G allien us. It was to be 
called Platonopolis. It was to be arranged after the model of 
the Republic, and would be a retreat for religious contemplation, 
an Hellenic cloister. But it came to naught. Plotinus was 
active in a literary way only in his old age, and he wrote his 
doctrine in single treatises and groups of such. They were 
classified by his pupil, Porphyry, in six enneads, and published. 
They were translated into Latin by Marsilius Ficinus (Florence, 
1492), and into Greek and Latin (Basel, 1580); new publica- 
tions of them are : Oxford, 1835, Paris, 1855 ; Leipzig (by 
Kirchhoff), 1856 ; Berlin (by H. Miiller), 1878-80. There is 
also a German translation of them (Leipzig*, 1883-84) by 
Volkmann. 

See K. Steinhart (in Pauly's Realencyklopadie) ; H. Kirchner, 
Die Philosophie des Plotin's (Halle, 1854) ; A. Richter, Neupla- 
tonische Studien, five volumes (Halle, 1864-67) ; H. v. Kleist, 
Plotinische Studien (Heidelberg, 1883). 

Porphyry, probably born and certainly brought up in Tyre, 
became the true disciple of Plotinus in Rome. Besides pre- 
senting and defending the doctrine of Plotinus, he busied 
himself especially with making commentaries on the Platonic 
and Aristotelian writings, and particularly on the logic of the 
latter. His Eio-aywy^ eis ras Karrjyopias is preserved. It is pub- 
lished by Busse (Berlin, 1887). This became exceedingly im- 
portant for the Middle Ages, as was also his biography of 
Plotinus (see Kirchhoff and Miiller's publication of the works 
of Plotinus) and his smaller single writings. See bibliography in 
Ueberweg-Heinze, I 7 . 313. See also the Parisian Plotinus edition. 

The problem of the Alexandrian philosophy of religion 
was the same for the Hellene as for the Christian. In the 



NEO-PLATONISM 369 

development of ancient thought, the individualization and 
the contemplativeness of the spiritual life kept equal pace, 
and created finally the burning desire to conceive the 
divine essence immediately and wholly with the inner- 
most activity of the soul, — to unite oneself entirely and 
undividedly with that essence. But the more that con- 
fidence in the ancient forms of mythical representation 
vanished, the farther off, the more unknown, and the more 
incomprehensible appeared the divine essence. The Chris- 
tian faith overcame this difficulty by the principle of love ; 
the mythical religion by the interpolation of countless 
grades between God and matter ; science, by attempting to 
conceive the totality of things as a series in diminishing 
perfection from the one all-creative divine power, and, con- 
versely, by looking upon the entire cosmic life as the simi- 
larly graded returning series of things completed in God. 
The neo-Pythagorean dualism was to be overcome both 
ethically and metaphysically and therein Plotinus and Ori- 
gen agreed. But while the latter, absorbed in the mysteries 
of the fall into sin and the redemption, analyzed the entire 
physical existence in ethical and religious terms, the former 
strove to make conceptual in the terms of sense the spir- 
itual unity of the universe. Whereas the return to God 
according to the conception of Origen formed a tremendous 
historical cosmic process for the entire spiritual realm, it 
was limited by Plotinus to the mysterious ecstasy of the 
individual. 

Metaphysics and ethics to Plotinus were, then, in inverted 
parallelism : ethics teaches the way of salvation to be the 
same series of stages of development toward an end, which 
is known in metaphysics as the process of origination from 
a beginning 

To Plotinus the Godhead is the original Being (to 
irp&rov) superior to all oppositions, inaccessible to all defin- 
itive characterization, wholly unspeakable (appTjrov). As 

24 



370 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

absolute unity it is superior to all oppositions, especially to 
those of thought (vocals') and Being (ova la). Only by 
relative determinations can it be conceived as a cosmic 
final cause (to ayaOov) and a cosmic force (irpooTT) Bvva/ii?), 
as pure, substratum-less (substratlos), creating activity. As 
such, it creates the world out of itself in an eternal, time- 
less, and necessary process. It is present in all creatures, 
yet it is separate and distinct from plurality. Itself eter- 
nally finished, it lets the fulness of things proceed from it- 
self without division of itself or losing anything of its 
essence. The emanation of the world from the Godhead 
is an Overflowing in which the Godhead is as unchanged as 
light when it throws its gleam into the depths of the dark- 
ness. But as its gleam becomes less and less strong with 
the increase of distance from its source, so the creations of 
the Godhead are only a reflection of its glory, which re- 
flection becomes less and less bright and finally ends in 
darkness. 

The attempt to reconcile the monistic causality of God 
with the fact of the imperfection of individual things, and on 
the other hand of reconciling (religious) transcendence with 
(Stoical) pantheism, became also very prominent in Plotinus. 
His " dynamic pantheism " completed an abstract monotheism 
which sought to regard the Godhead neither as spirit, soul, nor 
matter, nor in fact under any category. Yet the theory con- 
ceived the Godhead, though entirely contentless, as the origin 
of all determinations and as superior to them all. The light 
in the darkness is an illustration ; yet this simile defines also 
the thought of the philosopher from his point of view. 

There are three particular steps in which emanation pro- 
ceeds from the divine being : spirit, soul, matter. Spirit 
(Vou?) as the image (el/ca>v) of the One bears in itself the 
principle of duality. For all thinking, even consciousness 
of self, involves the opposition of subject and object, of 
thought-activity and thought-content (potjtov). The vovs 
having its source in the Godhead is indeed a unitary, 



NEO-PLATONISM 371 

self -related, intuitive function. Nevertheless it includes 
within itself the entire manifold of objects, the Ideas 
which are the archetypes of individuals. These are then 
designated as single spiritual potencies (vol). They are in 
the vovs and form in it the Koafxo^ votjtos, but as efficient 
powers they are at the same time the particular causes of 
events. 

From reflection upon the essential duality of the activity 
and the content of thought, there resulted the fact that the 
neo-Platonists were the first to formulate and investigate 
with exactness the psychological conception of consciousness 
(o-vvaLo-Orjo-Ls). The Aristotelian theory of alcrOyjTrjpLov kolkov 
gave them a point of departure which they happily further 
followed out. The distinction between the unconscious content 
of an idea and the activity to be directed upon that content is 
current in their psychology and was their most important service. 
See H. Siebeck, Gesch. der Psych., I. b, 331 ff. 

This distinction naturally ceases to apply to the divine vovs 
in so far as it thinks its entire content of ideas as eternally 
actual. In Aristotelian Phraseology, Plotinus said that the 
duality (htpoT-qs) within the Spirit's essence presupposes the 
antithesis of thought-form (vo^o-is) and thought-content (vXrj 
vo-qriKrj), — a content which is distinguished nevertheless from 
sense-content by the fact that it is formed without residuum 
and in timeless eVepyeia. 

" Matter " is here the principle of plurality, and Plotinus 
followed this thought also so far as to develop the manifold of 
Ideas in a Pythagorean number-speculation. In this the Idea 
is however no longer the Platonic class-concept, but the (Stoic) 
archetype of the particular thing. 

In respect to the intelligible world the Aristotelian categories 
were cast aside in so far as they refer to spatial and temporal 
relations and especially empirical events. For these Plotinus 
substituted five fundamental conceptions which were experimen- 
tally treated in the dialogue Sophist (254 b) as koivwUl iw 

tSewv : ov, (Trda-L^ klvy)<ti^ TavroTrjs, eTepoTrjs. 

So far as Ideas are causes of events, they are called Aoyoi, as 
for that matter the vovs of Plotinus has throughout to take the 
place of the Aoyos of the Philonic and Christian philosophy. 
See M. Heinze, Die Lehre vom Logos, p. 306 ff. 

The Soul (TJrvxv) stands in the same relation to the Spirit 
as the Spirit to the ev. Since, although it belongs to the 



372 HTSTOEY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY 

world of light, it stands on the bounds of the world of 
darkness, there is a duality in it: (1) unity and (2) divisi- 
bility, the higher and the lower souls. This duality is 
predicated in the first place of the world-soul, which Plo- 
tinus divided into two potencies, and the lower part, the 
(frvais, as a directly formative power (Oiafia) creates the 
body of the world and enters into it. It is the same with 
the individual souls into which the world-soul has dis- 
charged itself. There exists also in mankind the super- 
sensible soul, to which were ascribed the functions of the 
Aristotelian vovs. (See above.) This has pre-existed, and 
shall after death undergo metempsychosis according to its 
deserts. This soul is to be distinguished from the lower 
soul which has built up the body as an instrument of its 
working power and is present in all its parts as well as 
in its sensational and functional activities. 

As the light gradually fades away into darkness, the 
streaming out of the divine essence degenerates finally in 
matter. Plotinus regarded matter expressly as fjurj 6v in 
the sense that it has no metaphysical dualistic independ- 
ence in relation to the Godhead. It is the absolute 
GTeprjcris, the irevia TravreKrjs, and as airovala rod ayadov it 
is also TTpwrov kclkov. Plotinus founded his theodicy upon 
these negative determinations. Whatever is true, is divine 
and good : the bad is only what belongs to the /jltj 6v. By 
the same necessity with which the gleaming of light is lost 
in the darkness, souls were supposed to create matter out 
of themselves and enter into it as formative powers. 
The world of sense phenomena has an existence that is 
just as eternal as the soul. In a circular process of me- 
chanical development it unrolls the archetypes of Ideas. 
Then follows not merely a teleological conception of na- 
ture, but a downright magical one. Every event is an activ- 
ity of the soul : the pure world-soul creates gods, star-spirits, 
and the </>vw-daemons out of itself. In the mysterious 



NEO-PLATONISM 373 

co-operation of the whole is the individual sympathetically 
bound and prophetically to be foreseen. All investigation 
of nature was here annulled, but the door to all forms of 
faith and superstition was opened. 

This comprehensive view of nature, however, was under 
these premises cleft in two. The entrance of the soul into 
the matter created by it is its fall into the darkness, its 
alienation from the divine source of light. The world of 
sense is bad and irrational. Yet, on the other hand, the 
world of sense is formed by the soul which enters into it as 
Xoyo? (TTrepfjLaTi/cos, and to that extent is it reasonable and 
beautiful. In this respect Plotinus, in spite of the dualistic 
point of departure made necessary by his religious problem, 
held distinctly to the Greek conception of the beauty of the 
world of sense, and he knew how to connect it in the most 
happy way with the fundamental outlines of his picture of 
the world. When he enthusiastically praised, in opposition 
particularly to the Gnostic disdain of nature, the harmony, 
soulfulness and perfection of the world, and proved this 
out of his idealistic construction of the world, he gave us a 
metaphysical aesthetic. Beautiful is the object of sense 
when it makes its X0709, its ideal form, its etSo?, appear in a 
perceptible form. Beautiful is the world because down to 
the lowest deeps it is permeated and illuminated by the 
divine essence. 

Like a last farewell to the Grecian world was this theory of 
the beautiful which Plotinus brought into close connection with 
the ultimate principles of his system, and which he used for the 
first time as an integral part of a system of philosophy. To be 
sure, he strongly used Platonic and Aristotelian thoughts in it. 
But even the theory of the beautiful was not so fully developed 
by Plato, nor was it so essential a moment of Plato's as of 
Plotinus's system. The celebrated JEnnead, I. 6, is doubtless 
the most original scientific achievement of Plotinus. The dis- 
tinction of bodily and spiritual beauty, the contrast between 
the beauty of nature and of art, the organic insertion of aesthet- 
ics partly into his metaphysical system and partly into the de- 



374 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY. 

velopment of his ethics and psychology — all these are great 
points of view which Plotinus is the first conceptually to define. 
See Ed. Mliller, Gesch. der Theorie der Kunst bei den Alten, II. 
285 ff. (Berlin, 1837) ; E. Zimmermann, Gesch. der JEsthetik 
(Vienna, 1858), 122 ff. ; R. Volkmann, Die Hohe der antiken 
^Esthetik oder Plotin's Abhandl. vom Schonen (Stettin, 18(30) ; 
E. Brenning, Die Lehre vom Schonen bei .JPlotin (Gottingen, 
1864) ; A. J. Vitringa, De egregio, quod in rebus corporeis con- 
stituit Plotinus pulcri principio (Amsterdam, 1864) ; J. Walter, 
Gesch. der JEsthetik in Alterthum (Leipzig, 1893), pp. 736- 
786. 

Plotinus set out from the opposite point of view in his 
ethics, when he designated the share that men have in 
the divine life and their independence of the world as 
their goal ; and also when he conceived of the freeing of 
the soul from the body and its purification from sense — 
in a word, the turning away from the material — as the fun- 
damental ethical task. There is not lacking a positive sup- 
plement to this negative morality. Although only in small 
measure did the philosopher indeed find such positive sup- 
plementation in ethical or, as he called it, political virtues. 
Conduct was of little value to him, for it bind \ the soul to 
the material world. Social and political integrity is only a 
preparation by which the soul learns how to become free 
from the power of sense. Therefore the teaching of Plo- 
tinus was also without significance for political life. His 
attempt to realize the Platonic Republic seemed to be not a 
political experiment but the realizing of a condition in 
which chosen men could live their true lives of " contem- 
plation/' 

The return of the soul to God consists in its soaring to 
the vovs from which it came. Pure sense-perception offers 
little help to the soul for this return; reflection affords 
rather more. The most potent incentive is found in love 
for the beautiful, the Platonic e/?o>?, when the soul turns 
from sense impressions to the illuminating Idea. He who 
has an immediate recognition of the pure Idea, is pressing 



NEO-PLATONISM 375 

on to higher perfection. Yet true blessedness is neverthe- 
less attained only when man in an ecstasy (etco-rao-is) tran- 
scending thought for a more complete contact and union 
(afyr), a7rXo)crt?) with the divine unity, forgets himself and 
the objective world and becomes one with the Godhead in 
such moments of consecration. 

Plotinus regarded this highest holiness as a grace which 
comes only to few, and to these but seldom. He granted that 
the culture of positive religion is a help to the attainment of this 
ecstatic condition, although in other respects he opposed posi- 
tive religion. This help, however, had earlier seemed essential 
to Porphyry, and among the later members of the school it be- 
came the all-important thing. 

55. A pupil of Porphyry, the Syrian Jamblichus, used the 
philosophy of Plotinus as the groundwork of a speculative 
theology of polytheism, which co-ordinated all the cults of 
ancient religions in a systematic whole, and while exclud- 
ing Christianity attempted to consider the religious move- 
ment as complete. Among the enthusiastic supporters of 
this speculative theology are Theodorus of Asine, Maximus 
of Ephesus, the Emperor Julian, his friend Sallustius, and 
the martyr Hypatia. 

Jamblichus came from Chalcis in Ccele-Syria, and listened to 
Porphyry and his pupil Anatolius in Eome. He himself went 
to Syria as a teacher and religious reformer, and had very soon 
a numerous school, which exalted him as a worker of miracles. 
Nothing further is known of his life, and his death also is only 
approximately set about 330. His literary activity was limited 
almost entirely to commentaries on Plato and Aristotle, as well 
as on the theological works of the Orphics, Chaldseans, and the 
Pythagoreans. Portions of his exposition of Pythagoreanism 
are preserved : -n-eplrov Hv6ayopu<ov $lov (published by Kiessling, 
Leipzig, 1815 f ., and Westermann, Paris, 1850) ; \6yos TrpoTpeir- 
tlkos €6s cfaXocrocptav (Kiessling, Leipzig, 1813) ; 7rept ttjs kowtjs 
lxaOr]fjLaTLKYJ<s i7no-Trjfxr)<s (Villoison, Venice, 1781) ; irepl ttjs Niko- 
/xd)(ov dpL0fX7]TLKrj<s elcrayioyy] and ra OeoXoyovpeva rfjs dpiBjxiqTLKrj'i 
(Fr. Ast, Leipzig, 1817). Related (and probably erroneously 
ascribed to him) is De mysteriis uffigyptiorum (by Parthey, Ber- 



376 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY. 

lin, 1857) ; see Harless, Das Buck von den dgyptischen Myste- 
rien (Munich, 1858) ; H. Kellner, Analyse der Schrift des 
Jamblichus De Mysteriis (in Theol. Quartalsschrift, 1867). 

iEdesius, Chrysanthius, Priscus, Sopater, Eusebius, Dexip- 
pus are other members of the school. A writing of Dexippus 
concerning the Aristotelian categories is preserved (edited by 
Spengel, Munich, 1859). Some of the biographies of philoso- 
phers of the time by Eunapius of Sardis are also preserved 
(edited by Boissonade, Amsterdam, 1822). Maximus played a 
great rdle at the court of Emperor Julian, whose short reign 
marks the zenith of the power of this Syrian school. Precisely 
these same court connections drove the school into its hopeless 
war with Christianity. Julian himself was a devoted follower 
of Jamblichus. The letters published under his name are spuri- 
ous. His views appear in his speeches and in the fragments of 
his thesis against the Christians. Juliani contra Christianos 
quce supersunt (E. J. Neuman, Leipzig, 1880 ; translated into 
German, Leipzig, 1880) ; other editions of his writings by E. 
Talbot (Paris, 1863) and F. C. Hertlein (2 vols., Leipzig, 1875 
ff.). See A. W. Neander, Ueber den Kaiser Julian u. seine 
Zeitalter (Leipzig, 1812) ; W. S. Teuffel, De Juliano Imp. 
Cliristianismi contemtore et osore (Tubingen, 1844) ; D. Fr. 
Strauss, Julian der Abtrunnige, der RoniMntiker aufdem Thron 
der Gasaren (Mannheim, 1847) ; Auer, Kaiser Julian (Vienna, 
1855) ; W. Mangold, Julian der Abtrunnige (Stuttgart, 1862) ; 
C Semisch, Julian der Abtrunnige (Breslau, 1862) ; Fr. Llibker, 
Julian's Kampf u. Ende (Hamburg, 1864) ; A. Miicke, Julian 
naeh den Quellen (G-otha, 1866-68) ; A. Naville, Julien VApo- 
stat et -sa pliilos. du polytheisme (Neufchatel, 1877) ; F. Rode, 
Gesch. der Reaction Julian's gegen die cliristliche Kirche (Jena, 
1877) . A compendium by Sallust of the theology of Jamblichus 
is preserved (published by Orelli, Zurich, 1821). 

Concerning Hypatia, see Rich. Hoche (in Philol. 1860) ; St. 
Wolff (Czernowitz, 1879) ; H. Ligier (Dijon, 1880). Her pupil 
was the bishop Synesius, who tried to unite Neo-Platouism to 
Christianity in a unique way. See R. Volkmann, Synesios von 
Kyrene (Berlin, 1869). 

The theology of Jamblichus included no new point of 
view for philosophy. His metaphysics and ethics were en- 
tirely those of Plotinus so far as the treatment is conceptual. 
But this was exactly what did not satisfy the theologian. 
Born in a land of the greatest religious eclecticism, a land 
where Christian Gnosticism had arisen, he wished to trans- 



NEO-PLATONISM 377 

form tliis philosophy into an amalgamation of all religions. 
Since he regarded the ordinances of the Mysteries and the 
activities of all their fantastic cults as indispensable for 
sinning man in solving moral and religious problems, he 
used the neo-Platonic metaphysic only for inserting by alle- 
gorical interpretation the forms of gods of all religions in 
the intermediate grades which Plotinus had supposed to lie 
between the human soul and God. In order to find place 
for this fantastic pantheon, he had to increase consider- 
ably the number of these intermediaries ; and in order to 
bring the entire world of gods into a system, he had noth- 
ing better to use than the Pythagorean number-scheme. 

The passing success that this theory had iu the cultured and 
political world shows only the obstinacy with which the Hel- 
lenic, as opposed to the Christian world, held fast to the hope 
of solving the religious problem from within itself ; and Julian 
also, who gave historical significance to this fantastic theory, 
can only thus be understood. 

The details of this polytheism, and indeed those of the theurgic 
undertakings of Jamblichus and his pupils, are philosophically 
unimportant. Even his fancy of setting the 7rdvTr) app^ros ap\rj 
over the ev of Plotinus, which, bare of qualities, must not also 
be identified with the ayaOov, is still only aimless sophistry. 
Plotinus set up the opposition of subject and object in the 
vovs, and Jamblichus made out of this opposition the k6o-[aos 
votjtos and the koo-^os voepos. These are two worlds which are 
peopled with their own gods, and are again trebly divided. 
Some of his pupils further developed these divisions, and in 
this showed a preference for the triad schema, as did Jam- 
blichus also to a certain extent. 

56. The failure of this philosophical restoration of the 
old religions frightened neo-Platonism back to erudite 
studies, the centre of which again appeared finally at 
Athens. Through the influence of Plutarch of Athens 
and his pupils Syrianus and Hierocles, the school turned 
back to the study of Plato and Aristotle. In the person 
of its leader Proclus (410-485) it tried to systematize in a 



378 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY. 

dialectic way the entire historical content of Greek philo- 
sophic thought. 

The commentators stand out advantageously against the 
background of fantastic theories of the time. As Themis- 
tius previously, so Simplicius and Philoponus now, trans- 
mitted their learned compilations of the works of Aristotle, 
which became of value to subsequent time. But when the 
pupils of Proclus — Marinus and Damascius — undertook 
to develop the system of their master, then they fell victims 
to unfruitful quibbling. The effect of this was unfortunate 
in proportion as the diction was bombastic and assertive. 

The power of Greek thought was extinguished. The 
simple magnificent spirit of Greek philosophy had, to speak 
after the manner of Plotinus, grown so weak through all 
the Hellenic emanations that it passed away into its op- 
posite, into ostentatious vapidity. 

The edict by which the Emperor Justinian in 529 closed 
the Academy, confiscated its property, and prohibited lec- 
tures on Greek philosophy in Athens, was the official certi- 
fication of the death of ancient philosophy. 

Plutarch was called ' ' The Great " by his pupils after the 
neo-Platonic manner of excessively admiring the leaders of 
their school. By this title he is generally distinguished from 
his really more significant namesake. He died soon after 430. 
He seems to have been particularly interested in psychological 
questions, and he further developed a theory of consciousness, 
defining it as the activity of the reason in sense perception. 

Of the Syrian commentaries on Aristotle's writings, that 
upon a part of the Metaphysics is preserved and published in 
the fifth volume of the Berlin edition of Aristotle (p. 837 ff.). 
The commentary of Hierocles on the Golden Poem of the Py- 
thagoreans is in Mullach's Fragments (I. 408 ff.) ; Photius has 
preserved extracts from Hierocles' writing, irepl Trpovotas. 
Hierocles and his pupil Theosebius worked in Alexandria, and 
Syrianus was scholarch in Athens. 

Proclus was the intimate pupil and follower of Syrianus. 
He was of Lycian family, born in Constantinople, educated in 
Alexandria under Olympiodorus the Aristotelian, and was re- 



NEO-PLATONISM 379 

vered as head of the school by his pupils with extravagant de- 
votion. His life was written by his pupil Marinus (Cobetfs 
Edition of Diog. Laert.).* Among the works of Proclus (see J. 
Freudentlial in the Hermes, 1881, and Zeller, V. 778 ff.), espe- 
cially noteworthy is irepl rrjs Kara ILXoiTiova Oeo\oyta<s ; and there 
are also the commentaries on the Timceus, Republic, and Par- 
menides. These are collected by V. Cousin (Paris, 1820-25), 
with Supplement (Paris, 1864). See A. Berger, Proclus, exposi- 
tion de sa doctrine (Paris, 1840); H. Kirchner, Be Prodi 
metaphysica (Berlin, 1846); K. Steinhart, article in Pauly's 
Realencyclopadie. 

Of the pupils of Proclus there are mentioned, besides his 
successor Marinus, Hermias, who wrote a commentary on the 
Phaedrus; the son of Hermias, Ammonius, who edited the 
writiugs of Aristotle ; the mathematician Asclepiodotus, and 
further, Isidorus, Hegias, and Zenoclotus. The biography of 
Isidorus by Damascius is partly preserved in the writings of 
Photius. 

The last scholarch of the Academy was Damascius, who, 
like Isidorus, returned to the fantastic theories of Jamblichus. 
He was born in Damascus and studied in Alexandria and 
Athens. After the closing of the school he emigrated with 
Simplicius and other neo-Platonists to Persia. They returned 
soon, however, after some hard experiences. Of his writings we 
possess, besides fragments of various commentaries and his 
biography of Isodorus, also a portion of his writing 7rept twv 
irpwTuv apxu>v (published by J. Kapp, Frankfort on the Main, 
1826, with details of his personality), and also the conclusion of 
his commentary on the Parmenides. This commentary shows 
markedly the influence of Proclus. See Ch. E. Ruelle, Le 
Philosophe Damascius (Paris, 1861, and also in Arch. f. Gesch. 
d. Ph. 1890) ; E. Heitz (particularly), Per Philos. Damascius 
(in Strassburger Abhandl. zur Philos., Freiburg i. B. und Tu- 
bingen, 1884). 

Among the commentators who occupied a position of greater 
independence toward the neo-Platonic theory was Themistius, 
called 6 exxfafjaSyjs on account of his remarkable manner of presen- 
tation. He lived about 317-387, and taught in Constantinople. 
Those of his preserved paraphrases upon Aristotle are upon 
the second Analytics, the Physics, and the Psychology (pub- 
lished by Spengel, Leipzig, 1866). The paraphrase erroneously 
ascribed to him on the first Analytics can be found in the Ber- 
lin edition of commentators (M. Wallies, Berlin, 1884). See 
V. Rose (in the Hermes, 1867). 

Of the commentaries of Simplicius the Cilician, who, next to 



380 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY. 

Alexander of Aphrodisias, was the most notable expounder of 
Aristotle and the contemporary and companion of Damascius, 
there are preserved those upon the first four books of the Physics 
(published by H. Diels, Berlin^ 1882), and his commentary on 
Be ccelo (published by S. Karstein, Utrecht, 18.65), on Be anima 
(published by M. Hayduck, Berlin, 1882), on the Categories 
(Basel, 1551), and on Epictetus' Micheiridion. 

By the side of Priscianus and Asclepius there was the younger 
Olympiodorus, whose commentaries on the Gorgias, Philebus, 
Phcedo, and first Alcibiades (with the life of Plato) are preserved. 
There was also John Philiponus, of whose numerous commenta- 
ries (Venice, 1527 f.) those on the Physics have been published in 
the Berlin collection by Vitelli (1887). 

Of still greater significance than these men for our present 
knowledge of ancient philosophy there was a neo-Platonist, 
who, a contemporary to them, came out of the movement in 
the East. This was Boethius, who was condemned in 525. 
Although calling himself a Christian, he recognized only the 
arguments of ancient science in his treatise, De consolatione 
philosoj^hice (published by R. .Peiper, Leipzig, 1871). His 
translations and expositions of Aristotle's Logic and of the Isa- 
goge of Porphyry belong among the important writings on 
philosophy in the early Middle Ages. See F. Nitzsch, Das 
System des Boethius (Berlin, 1860) ; H. Usener, Anekdoton 
Iiolderi (Bonn, 1877) ; A. Hilderbrand, Boethius u. seine Stel- 
lung zurn Christenthum (Regensburg, 1885). 

The peculiarity of the work of Proclus was his union of 
mythological fancifulness with barren formulism, of his 
insatiable desire for faith with the gift of dialectic combina- 
tion. He was a theologian to the same extent as was Jam- 
blichus, but he constructed for his teaching a philosophical 
schematism which was carried out with exactness even to 
the smallest detail. He got the content of his teaching from 
authority : from the barbarian and Hellenic religions, and in 
addition from the great philosophers, especially Plato, 
Plotinus, and Jamblichus. He had himself initiated into 
all the mysteries, and no superstition however childish was 
so bad as to be rejected by him. He did not rest until he 
had given a place in his universal system to every such 
significant thought; and he was the true systematizer of 
Heathendom and the scholastic of Hellenism. 



NEO-PLATONISM 381 

The fundamentally constructive thought in his system was 
its abstract expression for the universal problem of neo- 
Platonism : the problem to make comprehensible the de- 
velopment of the One into the Many and the return of the 
Many into the One. The manifold effect is similar to the 
unitary cause, and yet different from it ; and this contra- 
diction is reconciled by the fact that the effect strives by 
means of that very similarity to return to the cause from 
its state of separation from the cause. Hence these three 
moments, permanence, going-forth, and return (fjbovrj, irpooBo^, 
iiriaTpoffyfi), are essential in every event. This is the lead- 
ing idea of the conception of nature of Plotinus, who had 
also added the further principle that the return is through 
the same phases as the going-forth. Proclus, however, 
applied this triadic schematism with a powerful dialectic to 
every distinct phase of development in nature, and repeated 
it again and again even in treatment of the finest details. 
Every form of his metaphysical theology divides into three 
parts, each of which is again subjected to the same dialectic 
fate ad infinitum. 

A certain formal likeness is obvious between this method of 
Proclus and the thesis, antithesis, and synthesis of Fichte, 
Schelling, and Hegel. It must not be overlooked, however, 
that by the latter the relationship is considered as between con- 
cepts, by the former between mythical potencies. But Hegel 
and Proclus are particularly alike in striving to systematize a 
very large given content of ideas in a dialectic way. (W. 
Windelband, Gesch. der neueren Philos., II. 306 if.) 

The development of the world out of the Godhead was, 
then, represented by Proclus as a system of triadic chains, 
in which the descent is from the universal to the particu- 
lar, from the simple to the complex, from the perfect to 
the imperfect. At the apex stands the original One, the 
original Good, which is raised above all determinations, 
entirely inexpressible, and only figuratively represented as 
the One, the Good, the alnov. Out of this One emanate 



382 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY. 

(even before the vovs) a limited, but, for our knowledge, an 
indeterminable number of unities (emSe?) which are also 
unrecognizable. These are above Being, life, and reason, 
and are gods having power over the world. 

These Henades had this theological significance for Proclus, 
that they place at his disposal a great number of supernatural 
incognizable gods. Metaphysically these appear in place of the 
second h of Jamblichus. Another "Somewhat" accordingly 
perhaps plays a part here. Proclus is, like Porphyry, an 
outspoken realist in the spirit of the Middle Ages. The uni- 
versal stands over against the particular as a higher and more 
nearly primitive actuality. Cause is identical with the universal, 
and the highest cause, the iv, is identical with the highest, most 
nearly characterless abstraction. One might, accordingly, sup- 
pose these simple abstract concepts to be the Henades, over 
and above which conceptions only the "Somewhat" remains. 
They have then a meaning similar to the Spinozistic attributes 
of the divine substance. 

The Spirit is divided, in the scheme of Proclus, into the 
votjtov, the votjtov afjua teal voepov, and the voepov. The 
Plotinian distinction between thought content and thought 
activity is fundamental here, but it is, however, at once dis- 
regarded on account of the theological construction. For 
here the votjtov is divided into three parts, in which the 
concepts of nrepas, aireipov^ and jmktov are combined re- 
spectively with Trarrjp, &vva/M$, and vorjens. Further, the 
concepts of ovaia and vTrapgis, of ^wr) and alcov are com- 
bined in so multifarious a relationship, and with so many 
interchangeable meanings that a whole army of gods re- 
sults. This same play repeats itself in the second sphere, 
and in part with the same categories. In the third sphere 
there are the seven Hebdomades of intellectual gods, 
among which, for example, the Olympians appear. 

This entire construction, which in accordance with the 
same scheme is carried in the psychical world to gods, 
daemons, and heroes, has no real intellectual motive at its 
basis. It is a kind of philosophical " mummification " of 



NEO-PLATONISM 383 

Hellenism. This is partly due to the dialectic architectonic, 
and partly to the need of giving to every form of poly- 
theism its place in the hierarchy of mythological formulae 
into which Proclus had translated the Greek conceptual 
world. 

The physics and ethics of Proclus show little individuality. 
He stood far off from the first, and adduced only this new 
thought that the material is not derived from the psychical, but 
directly from the a-n-apov of the first intelligible triad, and that 
it is fancifully formed by the lower world-soul, the <£ro-is. His 
attempt in ethics is to lower the metaphysical dignity of the 
human soul and to make it appear thereby the more needy of 
the help of positive religious exercise and of divine and daemonic 
grace. Proclus thinks, therefore, that the characteristic of the 
soul is its freedom, and therefore its guilt. The steps of its 
redemption are here also "political" virtue, scientific knowl- 
edge, divine illumination, faith, and finally ecstasy (jiavia) for 
which a peculiar power of the soul is presupposed. 

The two great streams of theosophy which burst forth 
from Alexandria, on the one hand, into Christian theology, 
on the other into neo-Platonism, were not long separate 
from each other. Although neo-Platonism was destroyed 
by scholasticism, it sent its thought through a thousand 
channels into the orthodox as well as the heterodox de- 
velopment of Christian thought after Origen. Both systems 
of thought found their perfect reconciliation in an original 
thinker, who was the philosopher of Christianity, — Augus- 
tine. The doctrine of Augustine, however, was much more 
than a receptacle for the confluent streams of Hellenic- 
Roman philosophy. It was rather the living fountain of 
the thought of the future. His was an initiating rather 
than a consummating work, and therefore he does not 
belong to the history of ancient philosophy. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 



(A list of works on Ancient Philosophy for English readers.) 



[Histories of Philosophy: by Stanley, London, 1655; Tenne- 
mann, Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophic, English tr. in 
Bohn Library, 1833, 1852; Ueberweg, 3 vols., 8th ed., tr. by 
G. S. Morris, New York, 1872-74; Hegel, Vorlesungen ilber die 
Geschichte der Philosophic (vols. XIII. -XY. of the Complete 
Works), tr. by E. S. Haldane, 3 vols., London, 1892-96; 
Schwegler, tr. by Seelye, New York, 1856 ff., and by J. H. 
Sterling, 7th ed., Edinburgh, 1879; Cousin, tr. by 0. W. 
Wight, 2 vols., New York, 1889; Lange, Geschichte des Ma- 
terialismus, 3 vols., tr. by E. C. Thomas, London, 1878-81; 
Erdmann, 3 vols., tr. edited by W. S. Hough, London, 1890; 
Lewes, 2 vols., 3d ed., London, 1863; Windelband, tr. by 
J. H. Tufts, London and New York, 1893 ; Weber, tr. by F. 
Thilly, New York, 1898. 

Histories of Greek Philosophy : by Zeller, 5 vols., in 3 parts, 
5th ed., tr. by S. F. Alleyne and 0. J. Eeichel, London and 
New York, 1876-1883; ibid., Grundriss, tr. by S. F. 
Alleyne and Evelyn Abbot, New York, 1890; Ferrier, Lectures 
on Greek Philosophy, 2 vols., Edinburgh and London, 1866, 
London, 1888 ; Burnet, Early Greek Philosophers, London and 
Edinburgh, 1892; Mayor, A Sketch of Ancient Philosophy 
from Tholes to Cicero, Cambridge, 1881 ff.; Benn, The Greek 
Philosophers, 2 vols., London, 1883; Marshall, A Short History 
of Greek Philosophy, London, 1891; Butler, Lectures on the 
History of Ancient Philosophy, 2 vols., London, 1866; Eitter, 
History of Ancient Philosophy, tr. by J. W. Morrison, Oxford, 

25 



386 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

1838-46 ; Anderson, The Philosophy of Ancient Greece Inves- 
tigated in Origin a7id Progress, Edinburgh, 1791. 

Histories of Greece, Greek Literature, etc. : Grote, History of 
Greece, 6th ed., 10 vols., London, 1888; Mahaffy, History of 
Classical Greek Literature, 2d ed., 3 vols., London, 1892; 
Laurie, Historical Survey of pre- Christian Education, London, 
1895; Sidgwick, History of Ethics, London and New York, 
1892; Flint, History of the Philosophy of History, New York, 
1894 ; Bosanquet, History of JEsthetics, London and New York, 
1892; Wundt, Ethics, vol. II., tr. by M. F. Washburn, New 
York, 1897 ; Cushman, History of the Idea of Cause, Har- 
vard College Doctorate Thesis, Harvard Library; Botsford, 
History of Greece, New York, 1899; Holm, History of Greece, 
English tr., 4 vols., Boston, 1894; How and Leigh, History of 
Rome to the Death of Cmsar, New York, 1896; Bury, History 
of the Roman Empire, New York, 1893 ; Mommsen, History of 
Rome, 5 vols., New York, 1869-70; Peter-Chawner, Chronolog- 
ical Tables of Greek History, New York, ; Kiepert, Atlas 

Antiquus, Berlin and Boston, 1892 ; Kiepert, Manual of 
Ancient Geography, New York, 1881 ; Teuffel, Geschichte der 
romischen Literatur, tr. by G. C. W. Warr, New York, 1891; 
Jebb, Primer of Greek Literature, New York, 1878; A. S. 
Wilkins, Primer of Roman Literature, New York, 1890; Ma- 
haffy, History of Classical Greek Literature, 2 vols., New 
York, 1891; Cruttwell, History of Roman Literature, New 
York, 1878; Middleton and Mills, The Student's Companion 
to Latin Authors, New York, 1896; J. W. Mackail, Latin 
Literature, New York, 1895. 

The pre-Socratic Greeks: Burnet, Early Greek Philosophy 
with translations, London and Edinburgh, 1892; Patrick, 
Heracleitus on Nature, Baltimore, 1889 ; Bohn's Classical Li- 
brary, translations ; Encyclopaedia Britannica, especially article 
by H. Jackson on Sophists ; Davidson, The Fragments of Par- 
menides, in Jour, of Spec. Phil. IV., 1, St. Louis, Jan. 1870. 

Works on Socrates : Plato, Apology, Crito, and Phoedo, Plm- 
drus, Meno, Thecetetus, etc. ; Xenophon, Memorabilia and Sym- 
posium; Aristotle, Metaphysics, I., 6 ff . ; Grote, History of 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 387 

Greece, vol. VIII., ch. 68 ; Potter, Characteristics of the Greek 
Philosophers, Socrates and Plato, London, 1845; R. D. Hamp- 
den, The Fathers of Greek Philosophy, Edinburgh, 1869 ; see 
also articles in Encyclopaedia Britannica. 

Works on Plato : Jowett, Translation of the Dialogues, with 
introductions and analyses, in 5 vols., 3d ed., New York and 
London, 1892; Grote, Plato and Other Companions of Socrates, 
3 vols., London, 1865 ; Pater, Plato and Platonism, New York 
and London, 1893; Van Oordt, Plato and His Times, Oxford 
and the Hague, 1895 ; Bosanquet, A Companion to Plato's Re- 
public, New York, 1895; Hartmann, Philosophy of the Uncon- 
scious, tr. by E. C. Thomas of the chapter On the Unconscious 
in Mysticism ; Martineau, Types of Ethical Theory, London 
and New York, 1886 ; see also Essays ; Campbell, in Encyclo- 
paedia Britannica, article Plato ; Nettleship, in JBellenica, The 
Theory of Education in Plato's Republic ; Mill, J. S., Essays 
and Discussions. 

Works on Aristotle, Translations : Psychology in Greek and 
English, page for page, with introduction and notes, by E. 
Wallace, Cambridge, 1882 ; Nicomachcean Ethics, tr. with 
analysis and notes by J. E. C. Welldon, New York and London, 
1892 ; also by Williams, 1876, Chase, 1877, Hatch, 1879, Peters, 
1881, Gillies, 1892 ; Politics, tr. by Welldon, Cambridge, 1888, 
also by Jowett, 2 vols. 1885-88, Ellis, with introduction by 
Morley, 1892; On the Constitution of Athens, tr. with notes by 
Kenyon, London, 1891; Politics, tr. by Wharton, Cambridge, 
1883 ; Rhetoric, tr. by Welldon, London and New York, 1886 ; 
Metaphysics, Organon, and History of Animals, tr. in the Bohn 
Library ; Lewes, Aristotle, London, 1864; Grote, Aristotle, 2 
vols., incomplete, 3d ed., London, 1884; E. Wallace, Outlines 
of the Philosophy of Aristotle, 3d ed., Oxford, 1883; A. Grant, 
Aristotle, in Ancient Classics for English Readers, Edinburgh 
and London, 1878 ; Davidson, Aristotle and Ancient Educational 
Ideals, New York, 1892 ; Th. H. Green, Works ; Bradley, in 
Hellenica, on Aristotle's Theory of the State ; Taylor, Disserta- 
tion on the Philosophy of Aristotle, London, 1813; Bain, Senses 
and Intellect, supplement by Grote, London, 1869. 



388 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

The post-Aristotelian period: W. Wallace, Epicureanism, 
London, 1880; Grote, Aristotle (see Aristotle) ; Jackson, Seneca 
and Kant, 1881 ; Bryant, The Mutual Influence of Christianity 
and the Stoic School, London, 1866; Capes, Stoicism, London, 
1880; Lightfoot, St. Paul's Epistle to the Phiiippians, 4th ed., 
London, 1878. 

For Epictetus, the AiarpipaL and 'Ey^ctptStoi/, tr. by T. W. 
Higginson, Boston, 1865; for Marcus Aurelius, ra ek iavrov, 
tr. by G. Long; Watson, Life of Marcus Aurelius, London, 
1884; Drummond, Philo Judceus, London, 1888; Schtlrer, His- 
tory of the Jewish People, 5 vols., New York, 1891 ; Munro, 
tr. of Lucretius' poem, He Natura Rerum, London, 1886; 
Masson, The Atomic Theory of Lucretius, London, 1884; 
Courtney, in Hellenica, subject, Epicureanism; Maccoll, The 
Greek Sceptics, London, 1869 ; Owen, Evenings with the Sceptics, 
London, 1881; A. Seth, in Encyclopaedia Britannica, article 
Scepticism; Cicero, Translations of, in the Bohn Library; 
Tredwell, Life of Apollonius of Tyana, New York, 1886; Pater, 
Marius the Epicurean, London and New York, 1888 ; Yonge, 
tr. of Philo, 4 vols., Bohn Library, London. 

Works on neo-Platonism and Patristics: Plotinus, tr. of 
parts of works of, by Th. Taylor, London, 1787, 1794, 
1817; Harnack, Neo-Platonism in Encyclopedia Britannica; 
St. Paul, Epistle to Corinthians, L, XV. ; ibid., PhUippians, I. ; 
Gale, Life of Protagoras, of Plotinus, and Epistle to Anebo, by 
Porphyry, Oxford, 1678 ; Taylor, Life of Pythagoras, London, 
1818; Chiswick, Egyptian Mysteries, 1821, also by Taylor; 
Schaff and Wace, Library of Nicene and post-Nicene Fathers, 

; Mansel, The Gnostic Heresies, London, 1875; Allen, 

Continuity of Christian Thought, Boston, 1884; Donaldson, 

Critical History of Christian Literature and Doctrine, ; 

Neander, Expositions of the Gnostic Systems, tr. by Torrey, Bos- 
ton, 1865; ibid., Antignosticus, tr. in Bohn Library; Bigg, 
Christian Platonists of Alexandria, Oxford, 1887; Harnack, 
Encyclopaedia Britannica, article Origen; Taylor, tr. of works 
of Proclus. 



INDEX 



Academy (see also under names of 

its representatives). 

Older, 224 ff., 249. 

Middle, 224, 332. 

New, 224. 
Acusilaus, 27. 
Adrastus, 303. 
iEdesius, 376. 
iEnesidemus, 33 ff . 
iEschines, 127. 
^Eschylus, 109. 
Alcidamus, 114, 123. 
Alcmason, 106, 108. 
Alexander of Aphrodisias, 303 f., 

380. 
Alexandrian philosophy, 342. 
Alexinus, 137, 139. 
Amafinius, 321. 
Amelius, 367. 

Ammonias Saccus, 362 ff., 366. 
Ammonias, 379. 
Anatolius, 375. 
Anaxagoras, 80-87, 88 f., 93 f., 102 f., 

110 f., 165 f., 175 f., 199 f., 229, 

314. 
Anaxarchus, 173, 331. 
Anaximander, 36, 39-43, 49, 70. 
Anaximenes, 36, 43-45. 
Andronicus, 237 f., 243. 
Anniceris, 145 f., 149. 
Antimaerus, 114. 
Antiochus, 224 f ., 338 f. 
Antipater, 303. 
Anytus, 126 n. 
Antisthenes, 140-145, 135. 
Apellicon, 243. 
Apelles, 357. 
Apollinaris, 353. 



Apollodorus, 43, 303. 

Apollonius (mathematician), 343. 

Apologists, 352 ff . 

Apuleius, 349. 

Arcesilaus, 224, 332 ff . 

Archagoras, 114. 

Archelaus, 87, 103 f., 123. 

Archytas (philosopher and mathema- 
tician), 94, 225 f., 229. 

Aristeas, 25, 347. 

Aristides, 352. 

Aristippus, 145-151, 135. 

Aristobulus, 347. 

Aristo of Chios, 302 f. 

Aristo of Ceos, 302. 

Aristo of Cos, 302. 

Aristophanes, 113, 127, 130. 

Aristotle, 224 f., 36 n., 37, 74, 81, 83, 
124, 152 f., 160, 188, 230-292, 
314 ff. 

Aristagoras, 24. 

Aristoxenus, 298 f., 301 ff . 

Arius Didymus, 339. 

Arnobius, 360. 

Arrian, 306. 

Asclepiades (The), 24. 

Asclepiodotus (philosopher), 379. 

Asclepius, 380. 

Aspasius, 303. 

Athenagoras, 352 f. 

Athenian (embassy), 340. 

Atomists, 68, 73, 87-93, 151-174, 
104, 229. 

Augustine, 228, 356, 383. 

Averroes, 237. 

Bacon, 154. 
Bardesanes, 355 f. 



390 



INDEX 



Basileides, 355 f., 358 f. 

Bias, 20. 

Bibliography concerning philosophy, 

7-15. 
Bion, 141. 
Boethius, 380. 
Boethus (Peripatetic), 303. 
Boethus (Stoic), 305. 

Cadmus, 25. 
Collides, 114, 122. 
Callippus, 272. 

Carneades, 224 f., 332 ff., 339. 
Carpocrates, 355 f. 
Catechists (school of), 352. 
Cebes, 94. 
Celsus, 361. 
Cerdon, 357. 
Cerinthus, 357. 
Chamasleon, 302. 
Chrysanthius, 376. 
Chrysippus (philosopher), 303 f. 
Cicero, 338 ff. 
Cleanthus, 303 f., 316. 
Clearchus, 302. 
Cleidemus, 105. 

Clement of Alexandria, 356, 359 ff. 
Clinias, 94. 
Clitomachus, 332. 
Cnidian Sentences, 24. 
Colotes, 320 f. 
Cornutus, 306. 
Crantor, 225 f., 230. 
Crates of Athens, 225 f., 303, 332. 
Crates the Cynic, 140. 
Cratinus, 109. 
Cratylus, 103, 110, 175. 
Critias, 114, 123. 
Critolaus, 302, 339. 
Cynics, 140, 145, 135, 296 f. 
Cynics (later), 307 f. 
Cyrenaics, 145-151, 135, 171, 296 f., 
320 f. 

Damascius, 378 ff. 
Demetrius of Phalerus, 302. 
Demetrius, Cynic, 307. 
Democritus, 151-173, 87 ff., 195, 207 
n., 263 ff., 322, 326 f . 



Demonax, 307. 

Dexippus, 376. 

Diagoras, 123. 

Dicsearch, 298, 301 f. 

Diodes, 94, 107. 

Diodorus Cronus, 136 f. 

Diodorus of Tyre, 302. 

Diogenes of Apollonia, 101 f. 

Diogenes of Sinope, 140-144. 

Diogenes the Babylonian, 303 f., 340. 

Diogenes Laertius, 157, 237 f. 

Dionysius (logographer), 25. 

Dionysius of Syracuse, 146. 

Dionysiodorus, 120. 

Duris, 302. 

ECHECRATES, 94. 

Ecphantes, 103, 229. 
Elean-Eretrian school, 139. 
Eleatics, 46-52, 59-65, 152, 175, 193 ff., 

260 f. 
Empedocles, 23, 69, 73-80, 81 ff., 88 f., 

102 f., 113 f., 164. 
Epicharmus, 109. 
Epictetus, 306 f. 
Epicurus and Epicureans, 319-329, 

164 ff., 297,331 f. 
Epimenides, 27. 
Eratosthenes, 303. 
Erennius, 367 f. 
Eristic, 138. 
Euathlus, 1 14. 
Eubulides, 137, 139, 
Euclid (philosopher), 125 f., 176. 
Eudemus, 298-301, 239, 245 f. 
Eudorus, 339. 
Eudoxus, 225 f., 229, 272. 
Euernus of Paros, 114. 
Euemerus, 145 f., 150. 
Eupolis, 109. 
Eurytus, 94. 
Euryphon, 24. 
Eusebius, 356, 376. 
Euthedemus, 120. 

Galenus, 341. 
Galileo, 154. 
Gassendi, 154. 
Gelon, 18. 



INDEX 



391 



Gnomic poets, 26, 28, 32, 50, 109. 

Gorgias, 113 f., 119, 79, 142. 

Greeks,- the early, 16 ff . ; and the 
Orient, 21 ff . ; poetry, 18, 24, 
26 f.; later poetry, 109. 

Hecateius, 25. 

Hegel, 243 n. 

Hegesias, 145 f., 150. 

Hegias, 379. 

Hellenic-Roman philosophy, 293 ff. 

Heracleides of Pontus, 220 f ., 229. 

Heracleides Lembus, 302. 

Heracleitus, 46, 52, 59-63, 70 ff., 76, 
82 f., 88 1, 93 ff., 110 f., 117 f., 
159 f., 175, 193 f., 260 f., 310 ff. 

Heracleitus (Stoic), 306. 

Heracleiteans, 103. 

Herbart, 194. 

Herennius, see Erennius. 

Herillus, 303, 308. 

Hermarchus, 321. 

Hermeius (Academician), 233 f. 

Hermeius (Neo-Platonist), 379. 

Hermes Trismegistus, 349. 

Hermias, 378. 

Herminus, 303. 

Hermippus, 302. 

Hermodorus, 176. 

Hermotimus, 27. 

Herodotus, 108, 24. 

Hesychius, 237. 

Hesiod, 20. 

Hicetas, 105. 

Hiero, 18. 

Hipparchia, 140 f. 

Hipparchus, 302. 

Hippasus, 103. 

Hippias, 112, 122. 

Hippodamus, 123 n. 

Hippocrates of Cos, 107, 24, 101, 
156. 

Hippolytus, 356 f., 359. 

Hippo, 105. 

Homer, 28. 

Hypatia, 375 f. 

Id.eus, 101. 
Irenaeus, 356, 359 ff. 



Isiodorus, 379. 
Isocrates, 30 n., 231 f. 

Jamblichus, 366 f., 375-377. 
Jewish Alexandrian philosophy, 

346 ff. 
Julian, 375 f. 
Justin, 353 ff. 
Justinian, Emperor, 378. 

Lactantius, 352 f. 

Lacydes, 332. 

Leucippus, 69, 87-93, 159 f. 

Logographers, The, 25. 

Longinus, 367. 

Lucretius, 320 f. 

Lycis, 94. 

Lyco, 126 n., 302. 

Lycophron, 114, 123. 

Manich^ism, 358. 

Marcion, 357. 

Marcus Aurelius, 306 f., 337, 353, 

Marinus, 378. 

Martyr, Justin, 352 f. 

Maximus, 376 f. 

Megarians, 135-140, 194. 

Meletus, 126 n. 

Melissus, 69. 

Melito, 353. 

Menedemus, 140. 

Metrodorus of Lampsacus, 28, 87, 

320 f. 
Metrodorus of Chios, 173. . 
Metrocles, 140 f. 
Minucius Felix, 352 f. 
Moderatus, 343. 
Musonius, 306. 
Mysteries, The, 26, 31 f., 47, 

56. 

Nausiphanes, 173, 326, 331. 
Neleus, 243. 
Neocleides, 229. 
Neo-Platomsts, The, 365-383. 
Neo-Pythagoreans, The, 97, 342 ff. 
Nicolaus, 303. 
Nicomachus, 343 f. 
Numenius, 343 f . 



392 



INDEX 



Ocellus, 94» 

Oinomaus, 307. 

Olympiodorus, 367, 378. 

Origen (Christian), 356, 361 ff., 367. 

Origen (Neo-Platonist), 367. 

Orphics, 32. 

PANiETIUS, 305, 337. 

Parmenides, 23, 46, 59-65, 69 ff. 

73 f., 80, 88 ff., 93 f., 110 f., 135 f. 
Pasicles, 34, 302. 
Peisistratus, 18. 
Periander, 18. 
Pericles, 87. 

Peregrimis Proteus, 307. 
Peripatetics, The, 298 ff. 
Persaeus, 303, 306. 
Phaedo, 140. 
Phaedrus, 320 f. 
Phaleas, 123 n. 
Phanias, 302. 
Phanto, 94. 
Pherecydes, 27, 30. 
Philip of Opus, 189, 225 f. 
Philodemus, 320. 
Philolaus, 93-100. 
Philo of Larissa, 224 f ., 338. 
Philo the Jew, 343-349. 
Philopomus, 378 ff. 
Photius, 379. 
Pindar, 109. 
Pittacus, 18, 20. 
Plato, 174-224, 124 ff., 146, 151, 

232 ff., 250 ff., 260 f. 
Platonism, Eclectic, 339 ff. 
Plotinus, 366-375. 
Plutarch of Chaeronea, 349. 
Plutarch of Athens, 376 f. 
Points of view regarding philosophy, 

6f. 
Poetry, Early, 18. 
Potamo, 339. 
Polemo, 225, 303. 
Poly crates, 18. 
Polymnastus, 94. 
Porphyry, 367 ff. 
Posidonius, 305, 337, 345. 
Positivism, 116. 
Priscianus, 380. 



Priscus, 376. 

Proclus, 366 f., 377-383. 

Prodicus, 112, 115, 123. 

Prorus, 94. 

Protagoras, 114-123, 146 f., 152 f., 

159 f., 175, 190 ff. 
Protarchus, 114. 
Pyrrho, 173, 329 ff. 
Pythagoras, 28 ff., 23, 56, 79, 171, 

344 ff. 
Ptolemaeus, 237. 
Pythagoreans, The, 23, 24, 26, 64 ff., 

72, 77, 79, 93, 100, 175 ff., 199 ff., 

229 f. 

Rufus, C. Musonius, 306. 

Sallustius, 375 f. 

Saturninus, 355 f. 

Satyrus, 302. 

Seneca, 305 f. 

Sextians, The, 341 f. 

Sextus Empiricus, 333 f . 

Seven Wise Men, 19, 132. 

Sicilian school of rhetoric, 7, 9, 

113. 
Simmias, 94. 
Simon, 127. 
Simonides, 109. 
Simplicius, 379 f. 
Skeptics, The, 329-337. 
Socrates, 123-135, 152, 172, 296 f. 
Socratics, The,. 135 f. 
Solon, 20, 28. 
Sopater, 376. 
Sophists, The, 34, 108-123, 128 f., 

159. 
Sophocles, 109. 
Sosigenes, 303. 
Sotion (Peripatetic), 302. 
Sotion (Neo-Pythagorean), 341, 

343. 
Speusippus, 224 f . 
Sphaerus, 303. 
Stilpo, 136, 139, 303 f. 
Stoics, The, 303-319, 230, 299. 
Strato, 299-302. 
Synesius, 376. 
Syrianus, 377 f. 



INDEX 



393 



Tatian, 359. 

Teles, 141. 

Tertullian, 356, 359 f . 

Thales, 20, 22, 36-39, 105. 

Themistius, 378 f . 

Theodorus (mathematician), 114. 

Theodoras (Cynic), 145-151. 

Theodorus (of Asine), 375. 

Theophilus, 353. 

Theophrastus,243 f .,298f., 300 ff ., 332. 

Theosebius, 378. 

Thrasymachus, 123. 

Thrasybulus, 39. 

Thrasyllus, 157. 

Thucydides, 108. 

Timseus, 94. 

Timon, 330 f . 

Tubero, 335. 



Valentinus, 355 ff. 
Varro, 339 ff. 

Xantippe, 126 n. 

Xeneniades, 114, 141. 

Xenocrates, 225 f., 230 f., 233, 

303. 
Xenophanes, 28, 46-52, 56, 62, 

267.- 
Xenophon, 124, 127 ff., 183f. 
Xuthus, 104. 

Zeno of Elea, 51, 65-69, 119, 

136 ff. 
Zeno of Cition, 137, 303 ff. 
Zeno of Tarsus, 303. 
Zeno of Sidon, 320. 
Zenodotus, 379. 



A System of Ethics 



By FRIEDRICH PAULSEN 

Professor in the University of Berlin 



Translated and edited by Frank Thilly, Ph.D. 

Professor of Philosophy in the University of the 
State of Missouri 



8vo - $3*00 net 

Of this work it may be said that it has taken its place as a standard 
authority on the subject, and its style, moreover, is so fascinating that a 
subject ordinarily regarded as heavy and didactic is invested with a genuine 
human interest. We know of no work in which the ethical impulses of 
Christianity are more clearly described. — New York Tribune. 

The book itself I have admired for many years, its adequate plan, lucid 
exposition, and abounding scale of life. It will be a great gain to have it 
in English, especially English so clear and idiomatic. Most translated 
books do not quite come over into the new language. But Professor Thilly 
has taught Paulsen English so that he speaks it like a native. — Professor 
George H. Palmer, Harvard University. 

It is a splendid book. — Professor William James. 

Just those problems are selected for discussion which sooner or later are 
bound to force themselves upon the attention of the thoughtful layman, 
while matters of purely academic interest have been vigorously excluded. 
Professor Paulsen seems rather to have written a laboratory manual of life 
than a text-book in the ordinary sense of the word. — Professor Frank 
Chapman Sharp, University of Wisconsin. 



CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, Publishers 

i 53—1 57 Fifth Avenue, New York 



A History of Philosophy 



By ALFRED WEBER 

Professor in the University of Strasbourg 



Translated by Frank Thill y, Ph.D. 

Professor of Philosophy in the University of 
the State of Missouri 



From the Fifth French Edition 
Revised and Enlarged With Bibliography 

8vo $2*50 net 

The value of Weber's book lies especially in his method, which gives a 
clear, untechnical exposition of the several systems and points out their 
fundamental errors, and, above all, exhibits the regular development of one 
philosophical system out of another. This is useful in the exposition of 
Kant and his successors. — The Outlook. 

For the first time a sketch of the history of philosophy which unites the 
three necessary qualifications for a text-book, — fulness, brevity, and read- 
ableness. — Presbyterian and Reformed Review. 

While the author's expositions and criticisms of ancient philosophy are 
skilful, and his treatment of the philosophy of the Middle Ages fuller and 
better than would be expected in so brief a manual, it is in the exposition 
and criticism of modern philosophy, to which, as already said, more than 
half of the volume is devoted, that we regard him as most successful. It is 
difficult, however, where all is good, to select for especial mention the ex- 
position of any one system. The expositions of Descartes, Spinoza, Locke, 
and Kant are all models of their kind, and would be readily understood and 
enjoyed by the young student and the general reader. The exposition of 
Hegel, too, is about* as luminous as so brief a presentation can well be 
made. — Professor George Martin Duncan, of Yale University, in The 
Philosophical Review. 



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